mm 


BV  4277  .L52  1872 

Liddon,  Henry  Parry,  1829- 

1890. 
Some  elements  of  religion 


CO 


py 


SOME  ELEMENTS  OF  RELIGION 


SOME  ELEMENTS  OF 
RELIGION 


1870 


/    ^'^ 


H.  P.  LIDDON,  D.D. 


CANON  OF  ST.  PAUL  S 


NEW  YORK 

SCRIBNER,  WELFORD,  &  ARMSTRONG 

1872 


v^ 


.A-t' 


Perche,  se  tu  alia  virtu  circonde 
La  tua  misura,  non  alia  parvenza 
Delle  sustanzie  che  t'  appaion  tonde, 
Tu  vederai  mirabil  convenenza, 
Di  maggio  a  piu,  et  di  minore  a  meno, 
In  ciascun  cielo,  a  sua  intelligenza. 

Par.  xxviii.  73 — 78. 


TO 

iojn  TOillfam  ©gU,   ^sq„  iH,©. 

OF  TRINITY  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 

WHOSE    WORK    AND    CHARACTER    SUGGEST 

MANY  PRECIOUS  LESSONS 

WHICH    HE    NEVER    THINKS    OF 

TEAC  HING 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


These    Lectures   were    delivered   in    St.    James' 
Churchy  Piccadilly,  during  the  Lent  of  1870. 

They  were,  at  the  time,  through  God's  mercy, 
of  service  at  least  to  some  minds, — anxious,  if  it 
might  be,  to  escape  from  perplexities  which  beset 
an  age  of  feverish  scepticism.  It  was  accordingly 
difficult  to  resist  the  practical  reasons  which  were 
urged  in  favour  of  publishing  the  Lectures;  but 
the  announcement  of  their  intended  publication 
was,  perhaps,  made,  before  the  drawbacks  which 
must  necessarily  accompany  the  rhetorical  treat- 
ment of  such  a  subject  as  the  present,  in  a  perma- 
nent form,  had  been  sufficiently  considered.  More- 
over, a  fulness  and  method  of  discussion  which 
satisfies  the  purposes  of  a  Lecture,  and  which  in- 
deed is  all  that  an  audience  will  bear,  must  fall 
altogether  below  the  standard  which  may  be  rea- 
sonably looked  for  in   a  book,  supposed  to  make 


viii  Advertisement. 


any  pretension  whatever  to  claim  the  character  of 
a  formal  treatise  upon  a  wide  and  serious  subject. 
Of  this,  upon  further  reflection,  the  Avriter  be- 
came so  strongly  convinced  as  to  have  enter- 
tained the  design  of  expanding  these  fragments 
into  a  larger  work.  But,  apart  from  the  pressure 
of  other  duties,  he  could  not  but  feel  that  such 
an  attempt  would  destroy,  together  Avith  the 
identity  of  the  Lectures,  any  moral  or  spiritual 
associations  that  might  cling  to  them;  and,  in 
working  for  the  cause  of  Faith,  as  in  other 
matters, 

"  Un  sou,  quand  il  est  assure, 
Vaut  mieiix,  que  cinq  en  esperance." 

The  Lectures  are  therefore  published  as  they 
stand.  It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  they  sug- 
gest only  a  few  thoughts  on  each  of  the  points  of 
which  they  treat ;  that  they  cannot  but  raise  some 
difficulties  which  they  leave  unanswered  ;  and,  in 
a  word,  that  their  limits  are  not  in  any  sense  de- 
termined by  those  of  the  general  subject,  but  only 
by  the  number  of  Sundays  in  Lent. 

Whitsuntide,  1872. 


CONTENTS 

LECTUEE  I. 

iFirst  ^untiag  m  ILent, 
THE  IDEA  OF  EELIGI0:N". 

Ps.  cxliii.  8. 

PAGE 

Sheiv  Thou  me  the  ivay  that  I  should  loalh  in,  for  I  lift  tq)  my 

soul  unto  Thee         ......  1 

LECTUEE  11. 

^econti  Siintiag  in  ILzxit 

GOD,  THE  OBJECT  OF  EELIGION. 

Ps.  xlii.  2. 
My  soul  is  athirstfor  God,  yea  even  for  the  living  God:  when  shall 

I  come  to  ai^ijear  before  the  presence  of  God   .  .  .39 

LECTUEE  III. 

W^ixH  .Sunbag  in  Emt. 

THE  SUBJECT  OF  EELIGIO^— THE  SOUL. 

Ps.  viii.  4, 

What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?     .  .  .81 


X  Contents. 


LECTUEE  IV. 

iFourt]^  Sutttrag  in  3Leixt. 

THE  OBSTACLE  TO  EELIOION— SIK 
S.  James  i.  1 5. 

PAGE 

When  desire  hath  conceived,  it  hringeth  forth  sin;  and  sin,  when 

it  is  finished,  hringeth  forth  death    .  .  .  .128 

LECTUEE  V. 

iJFfftJf  ^utttiag  in  %mt 

PEAYEE,  THE  CHAEACTEEISTIC  ACTI0:N'  OF 
EELIGTOI^. 

S.  Matt.  vii.  7. 

Ask  and  it  shall  he  given  you      .  .  .  .  .166 

LECTUEE  VL 

Palm  ^utttiag. 

THE  MEDIATOE,  THE  GUAEANTEE  OF  EELIGIOUS 

LIFE. 

S.  Matt.  3HBiir-41.  XK/V".  ^-j- 
Jesus  ashed  them,  saying,  What  think  ye  of  Christ  ?        .  .       204 


LECTURE  I. 

dFirst  Suntiag  in  Ucnt 
THE    IDEA   OF    RELIGIOK 

Ps.  cxliii.  8. 
Shew  Thou  me  the  ivay  that  I  should  walk  in,  for  I  lift  iip  my  soul  unto  Thee. 


0 


UE  age,  it  has  been  said,  longs  to  be  religious.  If  this 
is  too  unguarded  an  assertion,  it  is  at  least  true  tliat 
tlie  instinct  or  sentiment  of  religion  is  treated  among  us 
with  more  respect  and  sympathy  than  has  been  the  case  at 
some  past  epochs  of  our  national  history.  Amid  the  de- 
baucheries of  the  Restoration,  and  the  shallow  habits  of 
thought  on  the  gravest  subjects  which  marked  portions  of 
the  last  century.  Religion,  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  term, 
was  largely  discredited,  even  when  it  was  not  openly 
scouted  as  a  weakness  or  a  suj^erstition.  Whereas  in  our 
day  religion  is  named,  even  by  the  irreligious,  with  the 
forms  if  not  with  the  sincerity  of  respect.  And  some  men 
interest  themselves  in  religion  as  an  abstract  good,  with 
very  great  sincerity,  who  oppose  by  turns  all  that  asserts 
its  power  and  presence  in  the  world.     Thus  they  declaim 

B 


2  Religion,  how  far  welcomed  [Lect. 

against  cliurclies,  while  tliey  explain  that  in  doing  this  they 
are  befriending  that  true  Eeligion  which  churches  misre- 
present. Or,  they  would  do  away  with  priesthoods;  but 
then  they  are  only  anxious,  while  rescuing  the  fair  jewel  of 
religion  from  clerical  keeping,  to  make  its  sway  more 
imperial,  by  making  its  mien  and  countenance  more 
human.  Or  they  make  w^ar  upon  theology — the  theology 
of  Apostles,  Fathers,  Creeds;  but  theology,  they  declare, 
again  and  again,  is  a  pedantic  product  of  the  clerical  un- 
derstanding, and  they  for  their  part  are  passionately  inter- 
ested on  behalf  of  the  religion  of  the  human  heart.  They 
discredit  "  book  revelations,"  and  insist  upon  errors  of  fact 
or  errors  of  morals,  which  they  hold  to  be  discoverable 
in  the  Bible;  but  they  are  all  the  more  eager  to  profess 
and  feel  a  zeal  for  that  unerring  and  sublime  essence  of 
rehgion,  which  is  not  bound,  as  they  phrase  it,  to  the  letter, 
and  which  fires  their  enthusiasm  in  renouncing  the  letter. 
And  thus,  however  warmly  the  institutions,  the  ministers, 
the  beliefs,  the  sacred  literature  of  religion,  may  be  suc- 
cessively assailed,  religion  itself,  wx  are  assured,  is  respected ; 
or  rather  it  is  respect  for  and  loyalty  to  religion — to  religion 
divested  of  accretions  wliich  have  gathered  round  it  and  ob- 
scured its  beauty  during  the  lapse  of  time, — which  is  in  fact 
the  animating  motive  of  this  most  friendly  and  discrimina- 
ting opposition. 

That  religion  should  be  thus  safeguarded  as  an  idea, 
when  all  that  secures  its  practical  power  is  by  turns  ob- 
jected to;  that  the  abstract,  disembodied,  intangible  essence 


I.]  hi  the  Modern  World.  3 

should  be  so  sedulously  honoured,  while  its  concrete  forms, 
its  living  and  working  embodiments,  are  opposed  and  de- 
nounced, is  a  fact  which  must  engage  attention.  How  are 
we  to  account  for  it  ?  Is  it  that  we  live  in  a  "  period  of 
transition,"  when  men  have  not  yet  faced  the  last  conse- 
quences of  the  principles  which  they  are  adopting,  and  hang 
with  a  pardonable,  although  illogical  tenderness  between 
premiss  and  conclusion  ?  Does  the  sacred  name  of  religion 
still  command  an  awe  which,  while  it  is  not  strong  enough 
to  protect  many  practical  interests,  can  yet  hedge  around  a 
remote  object  with  the  forms  of  popular  respect  ?  Is 
it  that,  as  of  old,  barbarian  invaders,  who  will  without 
scruple  devastate  the  precincts  and  sack  the  interior  of 
the  temple,  are  pausing  involuntarily,  spell-bound,  almost 
terrified,  upon  the  threshold  of  the  sacred  shrine  ?  Or 
does  the  sesthetic  feeling  of  our  time,  looking  at  human 
life  with  the  eye  of  an  artist  rather  than  with  the 
eye  of  a  statesman  or  philanthropist,  j)rompt  this  in- 
terest on  behalf  of  religion,  as  alone  adequately  repre- 
senting and  upholding  the  ideal  side  of  human  existence  ? 
Does  it  anticipate,  not  without  reason,  the  dull,  barren, 
uninteresting,  prosaic  level  of  existence  to  which  we 
shoidd  be  reduced,  if  all  that  points  upward  in  thought 
and  feeling  could  be  utterly  stripped  from  us,  and 
eliminated;  if  human  life  could  be  robbed  of  the 
most  refining  and  stimulating  influences  that  can  be 
brought  to  bear  on  it  ?  Or  is  this  reserve  of  interest  on 
behalf  of  religion  at  bottom  a  social,  or  political — if  you 


4  Why  religion  is  respected.  [Lect. 

like,  a  selfish — class  instinct  ?  Is  it  order  cowering  before 
approaching  rev^olution,  and  endeavouring  to  sup^oort  its 
regiments  and  its  policemen  with  forces  summoned  from 
some  higher  world,  whether  of  fact  or  fancy;  with  invisible 
powers  capable  of  making  their  way  into  the  very  heart  of 
the  enemy's  camp  ?  Is  it  that  we  of  this  generation,  who  have 
read  in  the  annals  of  a  neighbouring  country  the  stern  lessons 
taught  by  eighty  years  of  active  or  suppressed  anarchy,  are 
more  keenly  alive  than  were  our  ancestors  to  the  tremen- 
dous force  of  the  volcanic  passions  latent  in  human  nature  ? 
Ai'e  we  willing  to  grant  that  some  religion  at  least  is  a 
social  necessity ;  a  necessity  in  the  sense  of  Machiavelli,  if 
not  in  the  sense  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  Are  we  satisfied  that  the 
brute  within  us,  if  he  is  to  be  chained  and  imprisoned  at 
all,  can  only  be  taken  captive  by  a  superhuman  master, 
and  will  never  forfeit  his  destructive  liberty,  except  at  the 
bidding  of  an  unearthly  creed  ? 

Undoubtedly,  it  may  be  admitted  that  religion  owes  some- 
thing, on  the  score  of  respect  yielded  to  her  as  an  abstract 
idea,  to  each  of  these  causes.  The  awe  which  a  reasoned 
scepticism  cannot  always  crush,  the  perception  of  what  it  is 
that  constitutes  beauty  in  life,  combine  with  the  stern  prac- 
tical instincts  of  social  safety,  with  the  love  of  order,  and  the 
anxiety  to  make  property  and  life  secure,  to  insist  that  man 
must  have  sometliing  in  the  way  of  a  religion.  Schemes  of 
independent  morality,  even  if  they  were  theoretically  defen- 
sible, are  not  equal  to  resisting  the  impetuosities  of  passion, 
or  the  exorbitant  demands  of  a  low  seK-interest.     "  Take  my 


L]  Inflttejice  of  the  S2ibjective  spii'it.  5 

word  for  it,"  said  a  great  statesman,  "  it  is  not  prudent  as 
a  rule  to  trust  yourself  to  any  man  who  tells  you  that  he 
does  not  believe  in  a  God  or  in  a  future  after  death."  ^ 

But  a  deeper  reason  for  the  fact  we  are  considering,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  wider  conviction  that  religion  is,  if  I  may 
so  express  it,  an  indispensable  part  of  man's  moral  and 
mental  outfit.  Two  causes  have  contributed  to  deepen  this 
conviction  in  modern  times. 

The  first  is  the  subjective  spirit  of  the  age,  which 
insists  on  looking^  at  truth,  not  as  it  is  in  itseK,  in  its 
utter  independence  of  the  mind  of  man,  but  as  it  pre- 
sents itself  to  man's  mind,  or  rather  as  man's  mind  in  very 
varying  moods  apprehends  it.  This  spirit,  while  it  has 
weakened  the  public  hold  upon  Creeds  and  Scriptures,  has 
directed  attention,  with  an  intensity  unknown  before  our 
day,  to  the  needs  of  the  human  mind,  and  among  them  to 
its  supreme  need  of  a  religion.  It  has  indeed  exaggerated 
this  into  maintainim:^,  as  with  Feuerbach,  that  all  existing^ 
religions  are  but  the  creations  of  human  thought,  which, 
while  it  is  really  doomed  to  an  uninterrupted  contact  with  the 
world  of  sense,  aspires  to  create,  if  it  cannot  discover,  an  ideal 
world  beyond;  but  this  paradox  only  yields  an  additional 
testimony  to  the  need  we  have,  as  men,  of  some  religion, 
in  order  to  do  justice  to  our  humanity.  Religion,  says  a 
modern  English  writer,  who  certainly  will  not  be  suspected 
of  any  desire  to  exaggerate  its  influence,  is  that  "  which 
gives  to  man,  in  the  midst  of  the  rest  of  creation,  his  special 

^  Sir  liobeit  Peel. 


6  I 7iflite7ice  of  historical  sttidies.         [Lect. 

elevation  and  dignity."  ^  And  it  was  perhaps,  npon  tlie 
whole,  the  most  marked  feature  in  the  work  of  Schleier- 
macher,  that  when  groping  his  way  back  from  the  grim 
intellectual  desert  into  which  many  of  his  countrymen 
had  been  led,  under  the  guidance  of  the  older  Eation- 
alism,  he  insisted  with  such  emphasis  and  success  upon  the 
necessity  of  religion  in  order  to  the  completion  of  human 
life.  Beyond  any  of  his  contemporaries,  he  saw  and 
pointed  out  that  by  our  capacity  for  religion;  by  our  power 
of  looking  beyond  this  deceptive  and  passing  world  of  sense 
to  a  higher  world,  invisible  and  eternal;  by  loyalty  to 
the  obligations  which  that  clearer  sight  imposes  on  iis, 
we  men  are  best  distinguished  from  the  brutes  around  us. 
Language  itself,  the  physical  dress  in  which  we  clothe 
our  thought,  is  not  more  distinctly  royal  among  our  out- 
ward human  prerogatives,  than  that  upturned  countenance 
which,  as  the  heathen  poet  divined,  is  the  symbol  of  our 
intelligent  capacity  for  a  higher  life. 

The  indispensableness  of  religion  to  human  life  has  also 
been  forced  on  the  mind  of  this  generation  by  a  deeper 
study  of  history.  The  more  we  know  of  the  annals  of  our 
race,  the  more  clearly  is  it  seen  how  the  greatest  catastrophes, 
and  the  most  profound  and  far-reaching  changes,  have  really 
turned  upon  religious  questions  ;  and  that  the  stronger  and 
more  definite  has  been  the  religion,  the  more  fundamental 
and  striking  have  been  these  results.  Thus,  for  instance, 
the  modern  history  of  Europe  has  been  little  else  than  a 

^  l>oude  :  Hist.  Engl.  xii.  535. 


I.]  A  more peinnanent  ccutse.  7 

history  of  struggles  fundamentally  religious.  A  recent 
historian  of  civilisation  has  indeed  maintained  that  this  is 
true  only  of  the  past,  ^  and  that  the  present  age  has  more  and 
more  learned  to  restrict  its  enthusiasm  to  material  objects. 
But  he  forgets  that  religion  does  not  cease  to  influence  events 
among  those  who  reject  its  claims :  it  excites  the  strongest 
human  passions  not  merely  in  its  defenders,  but  in  its  enemies. 
The  claim  to  hold  communion  with  an  unseen  world  irritates 
when  it  does  not  win  and  satisfy.  Atheism  has  again  and 
again  been  a  fanaticism ;  it  has  been  a  missionary  and  a  per- 
secutor by  turns ;  it  is  lashed  into  passion  by  the  very  pre- 
sence of  the  sublime  passion  to  which  it  is  opposed.  We  of 
to-day  know  full  well  that  no  political  subjects  are  discussed 
so  warmly  as  those  which  bear  even  remotely  upon  religion. 
"  The  deepest  subject,"  says  Goethe,  "  in  the  history  of  the 
world  and  of  mankind,  and  that  to  which  all  others  are  sub- 
ordinate, is  the  conflict  between  faith  and  unbelief"  - 

While  these  causes  make  an  interest  in  religion,  of  what- 
ever kind,  inevitable  among  thoughtful  men  in  our  day  and 
generation,  they  only  reinforce,  they  do  not  obscure  or 
supersede,  those  permanent  reasons  for  its  influence,  which 
are  part  of  our  natural  and  human  circumstances.  Among 
these  it  may  suffice  to  mention  one.  It  is  a  fact,  certain  to 
each  one  of  us,  that  we  shall  individually  die.  If  science 
could  arrest  the  empire  of  death,  as  it  has  limited  that  of 
disease ;  if  thouglit,  in  its  onward  march  throughout  the  cen- 
turies, could  rob  us  utterly  of  the  presentiment  of  an  im- 

1  Buckle  :  Hist.  Civ.  i.  241-325.  ^  q^,  ^y  Lulhardt. 


8  What  is  religion  ?  [Lect. 

mortality  and  of  our  aspirations  towards  a  higher  world,  then 
religion  would  retain,  in  the  fixed  circumstances  of  life,  no 
ally  of  anything  like  equal  power.  But  there  is  the  certainty, 
present  to  each  one  of  us  in  our  thoughtful  moments,  never 
entirely  absent  from  the  thought  of  those  who  seriously 
think  at  all,  that  an  hour  will  come  when  we  shall  face  the 
problem  of  problems  for  ourselves  and  alone;  when  we  shall 
know  by  experience  what  really  is  beyond  the  veil,  and  how 
it  is  related  to  that  which  we  see  and  are  here ;  and  it  is 
impossible,  with  this  prospect  before  us,  to  treat  the  voice 
and  claims  of  religion  as  wholly  trivial  or  unimportant.  ^ 

But  here  the  question  arises  as  to  what  it  is  that  man  seeks 
in  seeking  religion.  Or  rather,  what  is  religion?  We 
know  it  wdien  we  meet  it  in  life ;  we  know  it  by  its  bearing, 
by  its  fruits,  by  the  atmosphere  with  which  it  surrounds 
itself.  But  what  is  it  within  the  soul?  what  is  its  chief 
element  or  substance  ?  What  is  this  power  which  does  not 
meet  the  eye,  but  which  w^e  trace  in  its  results  ?  what  is  the 
true  psychological  account  that  must  be  given  of  it  ? 


I. 


As  we  repeat  the  question,  "  Wliat  is  religion,"  we  find 
ourselves,  it  may  be,  in  the  position  of  standing  face  to  face 

^  This  is  admitted,  although,  of  course,  in  terms  which  the  writer  would 
not  adopt,  by  Mr.  Buclde.     Hist.  Civ.  i.  113. 


I.]  Docs  it  consist  in  right  feeling?  9 

with  a  very  old  acquaintance,  with  whose  countenance  and 
habits  we  have  been  familiar  all  our  lives,  but  of  whose 
real  self  we  cannot  but  feel  we  have  a  somewhat  shadowy 
perception. 

1.  Is  religion,  then,  in  the  heart  of  man,  to  be  looked 
upon  chiefly  as  the  highest  and  purest  form  of  feeling  ?  Is 
feeling  the  essential  thing  in  true  religion  ?  So  thought 
no  less  a  person  than  Schleiermacher.  ^  He  makes  religion 
to  consist  in  feeling — notably  in  our  feeling  of  dependence 
on  a  Higher  Power ;  and  his  influence  has  won  for  this 
representation  a  wide  acceptance  in  modern  Protestant 
Germany.  2  Such  in  England  is,  or  has  been  at  times,  the 
practical  instinct,  if  not  the  decision,  of  Wesleyanism  and 
kindred  systems.^  Feeling,  not  knowledge;  feeling,  not 
morality ;  feeling,  not  even  conscience,  is  the  test  of  accep- 
tance— that  is  to  say,  of  satisfactory  religion.  Acceptance 
is  warranted  by  the  sense  of  acceptance ;  religious  progress 
is  measured  by  the  sense  of  enjoying  more  and  more  the 
raptures  of  the  religious  life. 

Nor,  if  we  look  either  into  the  recesses  of  the  human 
heart,  or  into  the  historical  expressions  of  religious  earnest- 

1  Schleiermacher,  Chris tliche  Glaube,  i.  pp.  6-14.  He  is  expanding  the 
proposition  that  "Die  Frommigkeit,  welche  die  Basis  aller  kirchlichen 
Gemeinschaften  ausmacht,  ist  rein  fiir  sich  betrachtet  weder  ein  Wissen  noch 
ein  Thun,  sondern  ein  Bestimmtheit  des  Geflihls  oder  des  unmittelbaren 
Selbstbevvusstseins."  Compare  p.  16.  Das  gemeinsame  aller  derjenigen 
Bestimmtheiten  des  Selbstbevvusstseins,  welche  liberwiegend  ein  Irgend- 
wohergetrofTensein  der  Empfiinglichkeit  aussagen,  ist  dass  wir  uns  als 
abhangig  fiihlen. 

2  As  with  Nitzsch,  Twesten,  and  others.  Cf.  Grimm,  Inst.  Th.  Dogm. 
p.  19. 

^  Compare  the  remarks  in  Southey's  "  Life  of  Wesley,"  p.  207. 


I  o       ''Feeling "  in  the  Psalter  and  S.  Paul.    [Lect. 

uess,  can  tlie  high  place  of  feeling  in  the  religious  life  be 
rightly  depreciated.  Feeling  is  the  play  of  our  conscious- 
ness coming  into  contact  with  its  object :  it  varies  in  in- 
tensity according  to  the  interest  we  take  in  that  object :  it 
is  a  totally  difierent  thing  in  the  case  of  a  casual  acquaint- 
ance and  of  a  near  relative.  When,  then,  the  soul  is  in 
intimate  contact  with  the  Object  of  objects — with  God, 
— feeling,  the  purest  and  the  most  intense,  is  not  merely 
legitimate,  but  ordinarily  inevitable.  How  much  of  the 
Psalter  is  feeling — the  tenderest,  the  strongest,  the  most 
loyal,  the  most  affectionate  !  "  Like  as  the  hart  desireth 
the  water-brooks,  so  longeth  my  soul  after  Thee,  0  God. 
My  soul  is  athirst  for  God,  yea,  even  for  the  living  God.: 
when  shall  I  come  to  appear  before  the  presence  of  God  ?" 
"Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee,  and  there  is  none 
upon  earth  that  I  desire  in  comparison  of  Thee!"  "My 
soul  hangeth  upon  Thee :  Thy  right  hand  hath  upholden 
me."  "  Do  not  I  hate  them,  0  Lord,  that  hate  Thee,  and  am 
not  I  grieved  with  those  that  rise  up  against  Thee  :  yea,  I  hate 
them  right  sore,  even  as  though  they  were  mine  enemies  !"^ 
How  profoundly  is  the  religion  of  S.  Paul,  as  we  study  it 
in  his  Epistles,  penetrated  by  feeling !  Always  in  felt 
contact  with  an  unseen  Master ;  he  is  tender,  he  is  vehe- 
ment, he  burns,  he  is  melted :  his  dispositions  towards  his 
fellow-men  are  so  various  and  keen,  because  in  him  feeling 
has  been  educated  in  a  hioher  Presence. — "The  love  of 

o 

Christ  constraineth  us : "    "  To  me  to  live  is  Christ : "    "  Who 

^  Pa.  xlii.  1  ;  Ixxiii.  2 J ;  Ixiii.  8:  cxxxix.  21-22. 


L]  '^Feeling  "  imist  have  a  true  object.  1 1 

shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ? "  "  I  live ;  yet  not 
I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me:"  "It  any  man  love  not  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  let  him  be  anathema  maranatha."  ^ 

But  the  question  is  not  whether  feeling  be  an  element  of 
sincere  religion ;  but  whether  it  be  the  one  most  essential 
element.    And  here  two  observations  cannot  fail  to  strike  us. 

In  the  long  run,  there  can  be,  for  well-ordered  minds,  no 
strong  play  of  feeling  apart  from  a  sense  of  the  intellectual 
truth  of  the  object  upon  whicli  feeling  is  bestowed.  To 
lavish,  feeling,  if  it  be  possible  to  do  so,  upon  a  personage 
who  is  even  suspected  of  being  mythical  or  half  mythical, 
is  to  prostitute  feeling.  Some  idea,  then,  of  the  object  of 
feeling  must  precede  the  feeling,  as  well  as  a  conviction 
of  the  truth  of  the  object  so  conceived  of.  We  are  told 
that  religious  feeling  is  especially  the  sense  of  entire  de- 
pendence upon  a  Higher  Power :  man's  inmost  soul  hangs 
confidingly  upon  the  Power  in  which  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being.  But,  then,  what  is  this  power  ?  That  is  a 
question  wdiicli  must  be  answered  before  feeling  can 
determine  its  complexion.  Is  this  power  an  impersonal 
force  ?  is  it  a  blind  fate  or  destiny  ?  is  it  some  vast 
machine,  having  neither  heart  nor  will,  but  moving  on- 
wards through  endless  cycles  of  destructions  and  recom- 
binations, of  life  and  death,  unceasingly,  resistlessly, 
inexorably  ?  If  so,  feeling  at  least  cannot  take  the  form  of 
absolute  dependence :  there  is  no  such  thing  as  surrender- 
ing yourself  in  trustful  resignation  to  a  piece  of  machinery, 

1  2  Cor.  V.  14;  Phil.  i.  21;  Ttom.  viii.  35;  Gal.  ii.  20;  1  Cor  xvi.  22. 


12     ''Feeling  "  nntst  lead  to  right  practice.     [Lect. 

whicli  may  crush  you  to  deatli  at  any  moment  in  its 
advance.  Trustful  dependence  is  only  possible  when  that 
on  which  we  depend  is  seen  to  be  a  Person,  and  a  moral 
Person,  that  is  to  say,  holy,  truthful,  compassionate,  just. 
But  here  we  pass  out  of  the  region  of  feeling.  It  appears 
that  before  feeling  can  trust  itself,  something  is  wanted 
to  guide  and  colour  it.  Knowledge  is  at  least  as  essential 
to  religion  as  feeling ;  and  knowledge  of  the  Object  of 
religion,  expressed  in  clear  and  precise  terms,  is  after  all 
only  another  name  for  dogma. 

But,  moreover,  feeling,  even  if  intelligent,  must  accom- 
pany right  moral  effort,  in  order  to  be  religious.  Feeling, 
even  when  directed  to  heavenly  objects,  may  be,  in  its 
substance,  partly  physical ;  and  there  is  no  necessary  con- 
nection between  feeling  so  originating  and  moral  earnest- 
ness, or  even  a  right  morality.  Nay,  it  is  very  possible  for 
those  who  feel  warmly  to  imagine,  mistakenly  enough,  that 
warm  feeling  is  the  same  thing  as,  or  an  adequate  substi- 
tute for,  acting  rightly.  He  who  said,  "  If  ye  love  Me,  keep 
]\iy  commandments,"  ^  implied  that  there  are  forms  of  reli- 
gious passion,  distinct  no  doubt  from  the  true  Christian 
grace  of  love,  which  may  co-exist  with  disobedience,  and 
may  even  appear  to  compensate  for  it.  The  Galatians  had 
not  been  the  less  willing  to  "  pluck  out  their  own  eyes," 
out  of  devotion  to  S.  Paul,  at  the  time  of  their  conversion, 
because  they  afterwards  looked  on  him  as  a  personal  enemy 
for  telling   them   the  truth  about  the  Judaisers.^      The 

1  S.  John  xiv.  15.  2  (^al.  iv.  15,  16. 


L]  Is  7^cligion  a  kind  of  knoiv ledge  f  1 3 

Apostle  was  not  insincere  who  protested,  "  Though  I  should 
die  with  Thee,  yet  will  I  not  deny  Thee;"^  albeit  a 
few  hours  later,  at  the  crisis  of  danger,  he  could  exclaim, 
"  I  know  not  the  Man."  ^  Feeling  is  not  necessarily  moral 
j^urpose ;  and  its  possible  deficiencies  on  tliis  side,  as  well 
as  on  the  side  of  knowledire.  shew  that  we  cannot  regard 
it  as  alone  forming  the  raw  material  of  religious  life.  ^ 

2.  Is  it  then  more  nearly  true  to  say  that  the  one 
essential  thing  in  religion  is  knowledge — knowledge  of 
God  and  of  the  things  of  God  ?  Somewhat  of  this  kind 
was  the  opinion  of  the  Gnostics  of  the  second  century. 
They  regarded  the  Christian  doctrines  as  simply  an  addi- 
tion to  the  existing  stock  of  current  human  speculations, 
and  they  ventilated  what  appear  to  us  nothing  less  than 
the  wildest  fancies  under  the  protection  of  current  Chris- 
tian phrases,  which  served  to  decorate  and  recommend 
speculations  that  often  had  nothing  to  do  with  Christianity. 
They  thought  that  the  Apostles  had  been  unintellectual 
persons,  upon  whose  well-meant  efforts  they  had  them- 
selves improved.'^  Since  faith  has  in  it  a  large  moral  ele- 
ment, their  watchword  was,  not  faith,  but  hioiuledge ;  and, 

1  S.  Matt.  xx\d.  35.  "-  S.  Matt.  xxvi.  72,  74. 

2  Hegel,  Werke,  xvii.  295  (qu.  Grimm).  Giiindet  sich  die  Religion  im 
Menschen  nur  auf  ein  Gefiihl,  so  hat  solches  richtig  keine  weitere  Bestiin- 
mung  als  das  Gefiihl  seiner  Abhiingigkeit  zu  seyn,  und  so  ware  der  Hund 
der  beste  Christ,  denn  er  tragt  dieses  am  starksten  in  sich,  und  lebt  vornehm- 
lich  in  diesem  Gefiihle,  Auch  erlosungsgefiihle  hat  der  Hund,  wenn 
seinem  Hunger  durch  einen  Knochen  Eefriedigung  ^vird."  This  does 
not  exclude  the  truth  that  the  affectionate  loyalty  of  a  dog  for  his  master  is 
a  reb\xke  to  the  coldheartedness  of  Christians  ;  but  it  is  rightly  implied  that 
the  religion  of  humanity  must  be  based  on  something  more  than  feeling, 

•*  S.  Irenajus,  Ha^r.  III.  12,  12. 


14  '' Kiiozv ledge''  necessary  to  religion,      [Lect. 

in  tlieir  own  phrase,  tins  knowledge  was  to  be  the  salvation 
of  sonls.  ^ 

The  history  of  the  human  mind  repeats  itself,  and  a 
position  which  is  at  bottom  akin  to  the  foregoing,  is 
familiar  to  some  of  ns  in  the  philosophies  of  Schelling  and 
Hegel.  Here  too  faith  is  only  the  lower  grade,  the  popular 
form  of  the  religious  consciousness ;  its  most  cherished 
doctrines  are  only  parables  of  the  realities  open  to  the  eye 
of  science  upon  which  the  modern  thinker  may  gaze. 
His  religion  is  thus  mainly  an  effort  of  the  intellect,  which 
is  perpetually  engaged  in  disentangling  and  distilling  from 
the  rude  forms  of  old-w^orld  creeds  those  abstract  scientific 
conceptions  which  are  better  suited  to  the  palate  of  modern 
philosophy.  2 

It  has  already  been  implied  that  knowledge — true  know- 
ledge of  truth — is  of  vital  importance  to  religion.  ISTo  one 
would  question  this,  except  in  the  interests  of  a  morbid 
fanaticism.  Eeligion  is  impossible  without  some  know- 
ledge of  its  object ;  and  our  capacities  for  true  religious 
life  must,  to  a  certain  extent,  vary  Avith  our  varying  degrees 
of  religious  knowledge.^     "This,"    says  our  Saviour,  "is 

^  Compare  the  account  which  S.  Irenaeus  gives  of  the  Yalentinians, 
Haer.  i.  6,  2.  Their  contemptuous  estimate  of  Catholic  Christians  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  phrase  "  ol  81  epycjv  Kai  iriaTeus  \pL\rjs  jSejSaLOVfxeuoi  Kal  fxrj  rriv 
TeKeioLV  yvCocnv  ^xoi'Tes." 

2  In  the  words  of  a  more  recent  Hegehan  writer,  "  Dass  der  Inhalt  der 
Eeliwion  und  Philosophic  derselbe  sey,  indem  den  Vorstellungen  des  religiosen 
Bewusstseyns  ein  ihner  fern  liegender  Sinn  untergelegt  wird,  den  man 
unverholen  auszusprechen  sich  nicht  getrauen  darf.  Daumcr,  Andeutung 
eines  Syslemes  speculativer  PMlosophie,  p.  45,  qu.  by  Grimm. 

8  Rom.  X.  2;  Eph.  i.  17;  iv.  13;  Phil.  i.  9;  Col.  i.  9,  10  ;U  .  2;  1 
Tim.  ii.  4  ;  2  Tim.  iii.  7  ;  Heb.  x.  26  ;  2  Pet.  i.  2,  3,  8  ;  ii.  20. 


L]  but  it  must  be  accompanied  by  love.  1 5 

life  eternal ;  that  they  may  know  Thee,  the  only  true 
God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  AYhom  Thou  hast  sent."  ^  The 
knowledge  spoken  of  here,  and  elsewhere  in  the  Bible,  is 
indeed  not  merely  intellectual :  it  is  knowledge  in  act ; 
it  is  the  knowledge  which  is  won  by  love  and  obedience, 
as  distinct  from,  although  together  with,  intelligence. 
^N'evertheless,  knowledge,  in  its  ordinary  sense  of  informa- 
tion apprehended  by  the  understanding,  is  indispensable 
to  religion.  Sight  is  not  the  power  of  walking  or  working ; 
but  we  cannot  work  or  walk  blindfolded  without  disaster. 

Yet  no  mere  action  of  the  intelligence,  however  active, 
upon  the  subject-matter  of  religion,  is  the  true  back-bone  of 
religion.  Knowledge  alone  may  only  enhance  responsibility. 
If  Christ  had  not  come  and  spoken  to  the  Jews,  they  had 
not  had  sin :  as  it  was,  they  had  no  cloke  for  their  sin.^ 
S.  Paul  contrasts  a  merely  intelligent  apprehension  of  reli- 
gious subjects  with  love.  "  Knowledge,"  he  says,  "  puffeth 
up,  but  charity  edifieth."^  The  whole  drift  of  S. 
James'  Epistle  goes  to  shew  the  worthlessness,  religiously 
speaking,  of  unfruitful  knowledge.  The  hearer  of  the 
Word  who  is  not  a  doer,  is  compared  with  the  man  who 
continueth  in  the  perfect  law  of  liberty  besides  looking  into 
it.  The  first  does  but  realize  a  fleeting  and  unproductive 
impression ;  the  second  has  undergone  a  change  of  life.  * 

The  most  intellectual  of  the  Greeks,  whose  thoughts  about 
God  and  the  soul  might  at  times  almost  seem  to  anticipate 

1  S.  John  xvii.  3.  «  S.  John  xv.  22  ;  ix.  41. 

3  1  Cor.  viii.  1.  *  S.  James  i.  22-24. 


1 6     Is  religio7i  anothe}^  name  for  morality  f    [Lect. 

Christianity,  as  they  have  been  welcomed  with  the  respect 
of  many  a  generation  of  Christians,  has  unwittingly  warned 
us  of  the  religious  impotence  of  mere  culture,  by  staining  his 
pages,  not  once  or  twice,  but  hal:)itually,  with  sympathetic  re- 
ferences to  crimes, tolerable  enough  to  the  public  sentiment  of 
Athens,  but  the  very  names  of  which  are  defiling  to  Chris- 
tian lips.  The  most  intellectual  Gnostics  were  sensualists  ; 
sensualists  upon  a  theory  and  with  deliberation.^  And 
modern  history,  if  it  were  worth  our  while  to  consult  it 
here,  yields  many  a  warning  that  intellectual  culture  about 
religious  things  is  one  thing,  and  genuine  religion  quite 
another.  Henry  VIII.,  who  had  been  destined  for  the 
English  Primacy,  was  among  the  best  read  theologians  of 
his  day ;  but  whatever  opinion  may  be  entertained  of  his 
place,  as  a  far-sighted  statesman,  in  English  history,  no 
one  would  seriously  speak  of  him  as  personally  religious. 

Intelligence  indeed,  however  cultivated,  is  only  a  depart- 
ment of  human  life.  Man  is  something  greater  than  a  culti- 
vated intellect ;  even  than  an  intellect  cultivated  by  study 
of  the  highest  objects  that  can  be  presented  to  it, — by  study 
of  the  things  of  God.  More  than  this  is  needed  to  con- 
stitute religion ;  which,  if  it  be  not  merely  a  sentiment  or 
passion,  so  certainly  it  is  more  than  an  intellectual  effort, 
however  serious  be  its  purpose  or  sublime  its  goal. 

3.  Are  we  then  to  say,  with  a  large  section  of  the  modern 
world,  that  the  essential  thing  in  religion  is  morality  ?    This 

^  S.  Irenoeus,  Hser.  i.  6,  3.  5t6  Stj  /cat  rd  aireLpyixeva  iravra  dSews  oi 
TeKeioraTOL  irpdrTovcnv  ainCJv,  irepl  &v  ai  ypafpai  dia^ejSaiovvTai,  roi/s  TroLOVvras 
avTo.  ^aa-CKeiav  Qeov  fir]  KXrjpopofMrjcreLu.      Cf.  1  Cor.  vi.  9,  10. 


L]  Morality  essential  to  time  religion,  i  7 

was  the  teaching  of  Immaiiuel  Kant.  Eeligion,  as  he  phrases 
it,  is  a  practical  recognition  of  the  Divine  origin  of  the 
moral  law.^  And  it  is  a  doctrine  which  constantly  meets 
us  in  the  society  and  the  general  literature  of  our  own 
country  at  the  present  day.  Its  popularity  is  easy  of 
explanation  in  an  age  when  belief  in  the  Unseen  has  been 
seriously  weakened  among  those  classes  of  the  people  to 
which  the  political  necessity  of  strengthening  virtues  which 
purify  life  and  uphold  society  is  pre-eminently  obvious. 

And  certainly  we  must  admit  that  religion  has  no  more 
appropriate  work  than  the  regulation  of  human  life  in 
accordance  with  moral  truth:  it  is  in  this  province 
especially  that  we  look  for  evidences  of  its  reality  and 
its  power.  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them,"  ^  said 
its  one  great  Master,  of  certain  religious  aspirants.  "Pure 
religion,"  according  to  His  Apostle,  "and  undefiled  before 
CTod  and  the  Fatlier,  is  this,  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows 
in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the 
world."  3  In  other  words,  it  is  active  philanthropy  and  per- 
sonal purity.  The  language  used  to  describe  it  in  the  Bible, 
implies  that  knowledge  of  religion  and  religious  emotion  are, 
as  we  have  seen,  worse  than  incomplete,  if  they  do  not  lead  to 
active  goodness.  ^  Wliat  a  man  knows  or  feels  is  of  little  im- 
port, until  it  is  ascertained  what  he  does,  or  rather  what  he  is.  ^ 

But  it  by  no  means  follows  that  morality  can  be  truly 
described  as  the  essence  of  religion.     It  differs  from  religion 

^  Quot.  in  Luthardt :  Apologetische  Vortriige,  1.  6.      "^  S.  Matt.  vii.  16. 
3  S.  James  i.  27.  *  S.  Matt.  vii.  22,  23  ;  2  S.  Pet.  ii.  20,  21. 

^  Ps.  XV.  i.  S2(2-;  xxiv.  3,  5 ;  Rom.  viii.  13,  14. 


1 8  Morality,  how  related  to  religion.      [Lect. 

in  this,  that  morality  is  conformity  to  a  law  of  right,  while 
religion  is  essentially  a  relation  towards  a  Person.  A 
perfect,  absolute  morality  will  cover  the  same  practical 
ground  as  true  religion.  But  if  men  endeaA^our  to  treat 
morality  as  the  only  essential  element  in  religion,  and 
accordingly  attempt  to  plant  it  on  some  independent  basis, 
physical  or  otherwise,  of  its  own — two  things  will  happen. 
Such  a  morality  will  be  much  narrower  than  a  religious 
morality;  it  will,  in  the  judgment  of  religious  men,  present 
an  incomplete  view  of  the  real  cycle  of  duty ;  notably,  it 
will  fail  to  recognize  that  most  important  side  of  duty 
which  we  owe  exclusively  to  God.  But,  besides  this, 
morality,  divorced  from  religion,  will  tend  more  and  more, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  to  approximate  to  a  depart- 
ment of  mere  human  law;  to  concern  itself  only  Avith  acts 
and  not  with  motiA^es ;  to  make  the  external  product,  and 
not  the  internal  gOA^erning  principle,  the  supreme  con- 
sideration. Morality,  severed  from  religious  motive,  is  like 
a  branch  cut  off  from  a  tree :  it  may,  here  and  there,  from 
accidental  causes,  retain  its  greenness  for  a  Avhile ;  but  its 
chance  of  vigorous  life  is  a  A^ery  slender  one.  ISTor  is  it 
possible  to  popularize  a  real  morality,  a  morality  that  shall 
deal  Avith  motives  as  Avell  as  with  acts,  Avithout  unveiling 
to  the  eye  of  the  soul  something  more  personal  than  an 
abstract  laAV.  It  is  when  man  has  caught  sight  of  the  one 
Perfect  Being,  and  in  the  effort  to  escape  from  the  weak- 
ness and  degradations  of  his  own  earthly  life,  "  lifts  up  his 
soul"  to  this  unseen,  all-poAverful,  all-bountiful  Friend, 


L]        Religion  a  bond  behueefi  man  and  God.        19 

that  lie  may  hope  to  discover  the  true  ideal  of  his  life,  and 
to  realize  it.  Eeligion  is  thus  the  constant  spring  and 
best  guarantee  of  morality;  but  morality  is  not  the  "  essence 
of  religion."  Eeligion  consists  fundamentally  in  the  prac- 
tical recognition  of  a  constraining  bond  between  the  inward 
life  of  man  and  an  unseen  Person.  ^ 

The  ancients  were  fond  of  discussing  the  derivation  of 
the  word  religion ;  and  Cicero  refers  it  to  that  anxious  habit 
of  mind  which  cons  over  again  and  again  all  that  bears  on  the 
service  of  heaven.  ^  Lactantius  may  be  wrong  in  his  etymo- 
logy, but  he  has  certainly  seized  the  broad  popular  sense  of 
the  word,  when  he  connects  it  with  the  idea  of  an  oblio'a- 
tion  by  which  man  is  bound  to  an  invisible  Lord.^ 

With  this  the  Biblical  phraseology  is  in  substantial  har- 
mony. The  expressions  which  describe  the  religion  of  the 
earliest  Patriarchs  are  in  point ;  and,  like  much  else  in  the 
Pentateuch,  they  mould  the  later  language  of  the  Psalter. 
Enoch  and  Noah  are  said  to  have  "walked  with  God;" 
Abraham  was  bidden  "  walk  before  the  face  of  God,  and  be 
perfect."^  Here  God  is  represented  as  the  bounden  Com- 
panion of  a  man's  life,  as  well  as  his  all-surveying  Judge 
and  Master ;  and  this  idea  of  religion  as  personal  devoted- 
ness  to  God  underfies  all  the  representations  of  Scripture 

^  Compare  Eus.  Prsep.  Ev.  1,  2.  y]  irpos  top  eva  /cat  fxopov  cos  dXrjOQs 
o/xoXoyov/nevov  re  Kal   'dvra  Qebv  dvavevais  Kai  i)   Kara  tovtov  ^(jjrj. 

2  Nat.  Deor.  ii.  28.  Qui  omnia  quaa  ad  cultum  deorum  pertinerent,  dili- 
genter  retractarent  et  tanquam  relegerent,  religiosi  dicti  sunt  ex  relegendo. 

2  Inst.  Div.  iv.  28.  Vinculo  pietatis  obstricti,  Deo  religati  sumus,  unde 
ipsa  religio  nomen  cepit.  Compare  the  hostile  phrase  of  TiUcretius,  "  religio- 
num  se  nodis  solvere."     Cf.  St.  Aug.  Retract.  1.  13  ;  de  ver^  relig.  xli.  55. 

*  Gen.  V.  24  ;  vi.  9  ;  xvii.  1. 


20  Religion  a  '' covenant  and '' com7minionr  [Lect. 

on  the  subject.  Eeligion  in  the  understanding,  is  the 
knowledue  of  God/ — of  His  will  and  commandments ;  it  is 
the  knowledge  of  His  "mystery"  or  secret  counsel  revealed 
in  Christ.  -  AVhen  the  Jewish  law  had  been  given,  religion 
was  practically  a  "walking  in  the  law  of  the  Lord  ;"^  when 
the  Christian  revelation  has  been  made,  it  is  an  "acknowledg- 
ment of  the  truth  which  is  after  godliness."  *  But  in  this 
truth,  in  that  law,  it  seeks  a  Person ;  it  is  fundamentally 
the  maintenance  of  a  real  relation  with  the  Personal  God, 
or  with  a  Divine  Person  really  incarnate  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Accordingly,  religion,  both  Jewish  and  Christian,  is  de- 
scribed as  a  covenant;  it  is  a  bond  or  understanding 
between  the  nation  or  the  soul  and  God ;  or,  still  more, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  faith  that  worketh  by  love,  it  is 
personal  communion  Avith  God.  "That  which  we  have  seen 
and  heard,"  says  S.  John,  "  declare  we  unto  you,  that  ye 
also  may  have  communion  with  us,  and  truly  our  com- 
munion is  with  the  Father,  and  with  His  Son  Jesus  Christ."  ^ 

Thus  religious  life  is  more  than  feeling,  since  feeling  may 
be  physical,  misdirected,  selfish.  It  is  more  than  knowledge, 
which,  even  if  it  be  complete  and  accurate,  may  fail  to 
govern  the  moral  nature.  It  is  more  than  obedience  to  a 
moral  code,  because  such  obedience,  if  sufficiently  complete 
to  Ije  religious,  already  implies  relations  to  the  Lawgiver. 
And  yet  religion  is  feeling ;  it  is  mental  illumination ;  it 
is  especially  moral  effort ;  because  it  is  that  which  implies, 
and  comprehends,  and  combines  them  all.  It  is  the  sacred 
1  Hos.  iv.  1.  2  Eph.  i.  17. 

=5  Ps.  cxix.  1  ;  Cf.  S.  Luke  i.  6.  *  Tit.  i.  1.  '^  1  S.  John  i.  3. 


L]  C/iaracf eristics  of  a  trite  religion. 


21 


bond,  'freely  accepted,  generously,  entliusiastically,  persis- 
tently welcomed,  whereby  the  soul  engages  to  make  a  con- 
tinuous expenditure  of  its  highest  powers  in  attaching  itself 
to  the  Personal  Source  and  Object  of  its  being.  It  is  tlie 
tie  by  which  the  soul  binds  itself  to  God,  its  true  friend.  To 
be  thus  bound  to  a  person  is  to  cherish  strong,  nay, 
passionate  feelings  towards  him ;  it  is  to  seek  to  know  all 
that  can  be  known  about  his  wishes  and  character,  and  to 
register  this  knowledge  in  exact  terms ;  it  is  to  obey 
scrupulously  all  that  is  clearly  ascertained  to  be  his  will. 
"  Shew  Thou  me  the  way  that  I  should  walk  in,  for  I  lift  up 
my  soul  unto  Thee."  This  is  the  language  of  feeling,  pure 
and  strong ;  it  is  the  language  of  intelligence,  ever  desir- 
ing a  higher  knowledge  of  its  Highest  Object;  it  is  the 
language  of  obedience,  the  most  absolute  that  man  can 
proffer.  It  is  these,  because  it  is  the  voice,  the  exceeding 
great  cry,  of  that  unquenchable  passion,  of  that  irrepressible 
aspiration,  wdiereby  the  soul  of  man  shews  forth  its  truest 
dignity  and  highest  virtue  in  seeking  the  better  to  know 
and  love  and  serve  its  Highest  and  Invisible  Object ;  be- 
cause, in  a  word,  it  is  the  language  of  religion. 


XL 

If  the  prayer  of  the  human  soul  be  granted,  can  we  infer 
from  the  needs    of  the   suppliant  any  of   the   necessary 


2  2    I .  Mysterioitsness  of  a  trtte  religiotcs  creed,  [Lect. 

characteristics  of  the  great  gift  which  is  to  relieve  them  ? 
To  say  that  we  can  do  so  will  not  be  "  dictating  terms  to 
God,"  because  He  is  not  more  the  author  of  a  religious 
Eevelation  than  of  the  moral  and  mental  instincts  which 
demand  it.  To  say  that  we  can  do  so  will  not  involve  our 
"  paying  court  to  the  corrupt  instincts  of  a  fallen  nature ; " 
because  it  certainly  is  not  these  instincts  which  seek  a 
close  apj)roach  to  a  nearer  vision  of  the  Throne  of  Moral 
Purity  and  Light.  Nor  will  it  compromise  the  True  Faith 
by  drawing  attention  to  some  features  which  are,  and  must 
be,  more  or  less  common  to  it  with  the  false  faiths  whereby 
man,  again  and  again,  during  his  long  and  weary  history, 
has  sought  to  satisfy  the  noblest  of  his  passions,  even 
when  he  has  only  lighted  up  the  dark  canopy  of  heaven 
from  fires  kindled  by  himself  on  earth.  For  in  order  to 
exist  at  all,  false  beliefs  must  embody  some,  even  con- 
siderable elements  of  truth;  and  conversely,  the  True 
Faith,  in  order  to  be  itself,  must  have  something,  both  in 
its  form  and  in  its  substance,  common  to  itself  and  to  every 
falsehood  that  opposes  it. 

1.  First  of  all,  then,  an  answer  from  God  to  the  religious 
needs  of  man  will  be,  at  least  in  some  degree,  a  mysterious 
answer :  it  will  half  unveil  much  which  shades  off  into  the 
unknown  and  the  incomprehensible.  To  profess  to  reveal 
the  Infinite,  and  yet  to  undertake  to  explain  everything  to 
the  perfect  satisfaction  of  a  finite  understanding,  is  worse 
than  unreasonable.  And  a  creed  which  should  discover 
nothing  that  lies  beyond  the  province  of  our  experience,  can 


L]  Why  a  true  7^eligion  is  rnysteiHoiis.  23 

have  no  pretensions  to  be  a  religions  creed  at  all.  For 
religion  is  not  a  relation  to  or  commnnion  with  natnre,  or 
with  any  natural  force  or  law ;  it  is  communion  with  an 
Invisible  Person.  Certainly,  we  hear  men  speak  of  a 
religion  of  art,  of  a  religion  of  work,  of  a  religion  of  civil- 
isation.  Harmless  metaphors  these,  if  it  be  only  meant 
that  all  the  occupations  of  life  can  and  should  be  penetrated 
and  sanctified  by  the  sense  of  God's  Presence  and  Will ; 
but  mischievous  and  misleading  to  the  last  degree,  if  it  be 
suggested  that  either  art,  or  work,  or  civilisation  is  in 
itself  an  end  worthy  of  the  highest  energies  of  the  human 
spirit.  He  only  who  made  us  for  Himself — the  Infinite 
and  Eternal  God — can  be  the  object  of  religion,  and  any 
serious  answer  to  the  religious  aspirations  of  humanity  must 
point  to  Him.  "  Our  preachers,"  said  a  German  writer,  refer- 
ring to  his  university  some  thirty  years  ago,  "  having  got  rid 
of  the  Christian  doctrines  by  means  of  the  higher  criticism, 
are  now  insisting  with  much  earnestness  upon  the  importance 
of  taking  regid.ar  exercise."  ^  Eegular  exercise  is  no  doubt 
a  matter  of  real  importance  in  its  way:  but  an  advocacy  of  its 
advantages,  however  impassioned,  says  nothing  to  that  side 
of  our  being  which  breathes  tlie  prayer,  "Shew  Thou  me  the 
way  that  I  should  walk  in,  for  I  lift  up  my  soul  unto  Thee." 
That  Christianity  is  mysterious, is  no  new  objection  against 
it.  Unquestionably  it  is  mysterious.  In  the  year  1702, 
Toland  undertook  to  prove  that  "  Christianity  is  not  mys- 
terious:" but  he  only  succeeded  in  leading  a  certain  num- 

^  Dr.  Tholuck  to  Dx\  Pusey. 


24  2.  Dejiiiiteness  of  true  religion.        [Lect. 

ber  of  minds  to  a  belief  that  it  is  false.  That  "  the  Gospel 
contains  nothing  contrary  to  reason "  is  the  conviction  of 
every  Christian,  who  knows  that  right  reason  and  revela- 
tion are  alike  gifts  of  God.  That  the  Gospel  "contains 
nothing  above  reason/'  is  an  assertion  so  paradoxical,  as  to 
be  undeserving  of  a  reply  from  those  who  believe  that  the 
historical  and  doctrinal  statements  of  the  ISTew  Testament 
are  integral  elements  of  the  Gospel.  Toland,  indeed,  could 
only  make  any  approach  to  demonstrating  his  thesis,  by 
tampering  with  the  ordinary  and  world-wide  sense  of  the 
term  "  Mystery;"  and  since  the  days  of  Toland  science  her- 
self has,  by  her  discoveries,  made  men  feel  more  keenly 
than  did  our  fathers  the  mysteriousness  of  I^ature,  and 
through  Nature,  of  Nature's  God. 

2.  Next,  God's  answer  to  man's  prayer  must,  at  least 
within  limits,  be  definite.  An  answer  made  up  altogether  of 
vague  hopes,  aspirations,  surmisings,  guesses,  probabilities, 
whatever  its  other  merits,  will  not  meet  the  specific  needs  of 
man.  What  does  man  seek  in  seeking  a  religious  creed  ? 
He  seeks  intellectual  satisfaction  and  moral  support.  His 
intellect  asks  for  reliable  information  upon  certain  subjects 
of  the  most  momentous  importance.  How  does  he  come  to 
be  here  ?  Whither  is  he  going  ?  What  is  the  purpose  and  drift 
of  the  various  forms  of  existence  around  him  ?  Above  all, 
what  is  the  nature,  what  are  the  attributes  and  dispositions, 
of  that  Being  to  Whom  the  highest  yearnings  of  his  inmost 
self  constantly  point  as  the  true  object  of  his  existence  ? 
In  asking  that  the  answers  to  these  questions  shall  be 


I.]         Moral  and  iiitellcctttal  reasons  for  it.  25 

definite,  that  what  is  certain  shall  be  affirmed  as  certain, 
what  is  doubtful  as  doubtful,  what  is  false  as  false,  he  is 
only  asking  that  his  religious  information  shall  be  pre- 
sented in  as  clear  and  practical  a  shape  as  his  information  on 
other  subjects.  In  no  department  of  human  knowledge  is 
haziness  deemed  a  merit:  by  nothing  is  an  educated 
mind  more  distinguished  than  by  the  resolute  effort  to 
mark  the  exact  frontiers  of  its  knowledge  and  its  ignorance  ; 
to  hesitate  only  when  hesitation  is  necessary ;  to  despair  of 
knowledge  only  when  knowledge  is  ascertainably  out  of 
reach.  Surely  on  the  highest  and  most  momentous  of  all 
subjects  this  same  precision  may  be  asked  for  with  reve- 
rence and  in  reason ;  surely  the  human  mind  is  not  bound 
to  forget  its  noblest  instincts  wdien  it  approaches  the 
throne  and  presence  of  its  Maker. 

Yet  more  necessary  are  definite  statements  of  truth  and 
duty  to  the  moral  side  of  human  life.  To  obey  at  all,  we 
must  know  what  are  the  true  limits  of  obedience,  and  what 
the  nature  and  authority  of  the  lawgiver.  A  soldier  under 
fire  has  two  things  to  do :  first  to  attend  to  the  word  of  his 
commanding  officer,  and  then  to  strengthen  his  will  by  all 
the  considerations  which  may  enable  him  to  do  his  duty. 
Man,  as  a  moral  being,  is  engaged  in  a  perpetual  campaign 
against  the  invading  forces  of  temptation  which  assail  him 
from  without,  and  the  insurrectionary  outbreaks  of  lawless 
passions  from  within.  If  he  is  to  make  a  successful  resis- 
tance, he  must  be  penetrated  by  a  conviction  that  it  is  of 
vital   importance  to  resist   to   the   last   extremity.     This 


26  Theology  necessary  to  religion.        [Lect. 

conviction  must  itself  be  made  iij)  of  and  depend  upon 
other  convictions,  sucli  as  the  sanctity  of  God,  His  power, 
His  omnipresence,  the  interest  which  He  takes  in  our  suc- 
cess, the  strength  with  which  He  supplies  us,  the  certainty 
that  He  will  come  to  judge  us.  A  faltering,  hazy  represen- 
tation may  feed  an  aimless  sentimentalism ;  it  is  useless  for 
the  purposes  of  an  earnest  moral  struggle. 

An  exact  creed  and  code  of  conduct  is  therefore  a  need 
of  man's  mental  and  moral  nature,  and  all  religious  systems, 
whatever  their  truth  or  falsehood,  have  attempted  to  satisfy  it. 
The  answer  to  this  need,  with  wdiich  w^e  are  familiar,  is  that 
contained  in  the  Christian  theology ;  and  we  use  that  word 
in  its  broad  sense,  as  including  the  whole  cycle  of  revealed 
doctrine  and  morals.  Theology,  in  its  scientific  exhibition, 
results  from  the  effort  which  the  Christian  mind  makes 
from  age  to  age  to  reduce  to  a  precise  and  working  form 
the  dej^osit  of  truth  committed  at  the  first  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  It  is  the  elaborate  inventory  which  century 
after  century  the  Church  has  been  taking  of  the  priceless 
treasures  which  were  committed  to  her  keeping  in  the 
age  of  the  Apostles.  What  doctrines  may  and  may  not  be 
catalogued  in  that  inventory  without  serious  inaccuracy,  is 
a  point  upon  wdiich,  unhappily,  there  are  wide  divisions 
in  the  Clnistian  world;  but  in  the  fifty  generations  of 
Christians  from  the  first  until  the  present  age  there  has  never 
been  any  sort  of  question  as  to  the  duty  of  ascertaining, 
as  correctly  as  may  be,  what  are  the  truths  which  Christ 
and  His  Apostles  have  taught,  what  is  the  exact  area  and 


L]  ^^sthetic  objections  to  definitcncss,  27 

import  of  tliese  truths,  what  their  moral  and  social  signi- 
ficance, what  onr  practical  duties  towards  them. 

Yes  ;  but  it  is  said,  has  not  this  inveterate  instinct  of  the 
Christian  mind  been  fatal  to  the  beauty  of  religious  truth  ? 
Is  not  religious  truth  better  left  in  the  vague,  hazy  distance 
of  -popular  thought  ?  Is  it  not  vulgarized  by  this  nearer 
probing,  by  this  inquisitive  anxiety  to  make  out  exactly 
what  it  is  ?  Is  not  the  New  Testament  vague  and  undecided, 
and  are  we  likely  to  improve  upon  it  ?  Are  not  the  clergy, 
too,  under  a  temptation  to  confuse  between  their  professional 
instinct  of  making  the  most  of  their  title-deeds,  and  the 
real  broad  interests  of  Christendom  ?  Has  not  Christendom, 
in  fact,  suffered  by  over-definitions,  by  false  definitions ; 
and  this  in  former  ages  as  certainly  as  in  our  own  ? 

Certainly  there  are  arguments  which  may  be  urged 
against  definitions;  and  first  of  aU  on  icsthetic  grounds. 
A  picture  of  Turner's  is  a  more  beautifid  thing  than  a 
working  drawing;  but  if  your  object  be  to  give  the 
measurements  of  a  public  edifice.  Turner's  picture  would 
not  be  the  more  useful  guide  of  the  two.  It  is  easy 
to  advise  a  man  to  "study  and  admire  the  poetry  of 
Isaiah  and  S.  John,  without  troubling  himself  with  the 
truth  of  their  theological  dogmas,  or  even  of  their 
historical  statements."  isTo  doubt  the  poetry  of  the  Evan- 
gelist and  of  the  Prophet  is  of  consummate  beauty,  but  it 
is  not  their  poetry  which  has  impressed  them  on  the  thought 
and  heart  of  the  Christian  world.  The  really  important  ques- 
tion about  both  these  writers  is,  what  do  they  exactly  teach 


28         Definiteness  of  the  Neza  Testament.     [Lect. 

upon  the  gravest  subjects  that  can  interest  thoughtful  men  ? 
And  next,  is  their  teaching  true  ?  The  answer  to  this,  to  be 
worth  having,  must  be  a  sharply  defined  answer ;  and  art, 
if  needs  be,  must  make  a  sacrifice  to  the  demands  of  truth. 
That  there  have  been  unnecessary  definitions,  rash  defini- 
tions, false  definitions  in  Christendom,  must  be  frankly 
granted ;  that  they  are  still  possible  cannot  be  denied, 
in  view  of  contemporary  events;  that  they  have  injured 
the  cause  of  Christ  cannot  be  doubted.  But  the  ques- 
tion is  as  to  the  principle  of  definiteness,  not  as  to 
its  abuse :  false  definitions,  like  false  miracles,  imply  the 
true,  of  which  they  are  a  counterfeit  and  caricature.  As 
to  the  New  Testament,  those  who  speak  of  its  teaching 
as  indefinite,  appear  to  confuse  between  its  substance 
and  its  form.  Made  up  as  it  is  of  four  biographical 
sketches,  of  one  narrative  of  the  lives  and  works  of  some 
missionary  teachers,  of  twenty-one  letters,  six  of  them 
addressed  to  individuals,  and  of  one  descrijotion  of  a 
heavenly  vision,  its  form  is,  of  necessity,  unmethodical ;  it  is, 
if  you  will,  anti-scholastic.  But  its  form  is  distinct  from  its 
substance ;  and  from  age  to  age  the  clear  import  of  its  sub- 
stance is  pressed  upon  the  imagination  and  heart  of  the 
w^orld  by  the  matchless  beauties  of  its  form.  The  teaching 
of  the  New  Testament  indefinite  !  It  is  simple  paradox. 
AVhat  can  be  more  definite  than  the  account  of  Christ's  Birth, 
of  His  Miracles,  of  His  Eesurrection,  of  His  Ascension 
into  heaven,  in  the  first  three  Gospels  ?  Wliat  more  definite 
than  the  awful  representation  of  His  Person  in  the  fourth  ? 


L]  Dcjiniteiiess  of  the  New  Testament.  29 

Is  the  account  of  j  ustification  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Eomans 
and  the  Galatians  indefinite  ?  Or  that  of  the  Eucharist  and 
the  supernatural  gifts  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Eirst  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  or  that  of  the  incorporation  of  the  Church 
with  the  living  and  triumphant  Christ  in  the  letters  to 
the  Colossians  and  Ephesians,  or  that  of  its  organization 
in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  ?  Is  it  not  rather  true  that  the 
New  Testament  is  much  too  definite  for  modern  unbelief, 
and  that  the  real  crime  of  the  Church  is,  not  that  she  has 
added  the  quality  of  definiteness  to  the  writings  of  the 
Apostles  and  the  Evangelists,  but  that  she  has  persistently 
called  attention  to  that  quality  which  from  the  first,  and 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  belonged  to  them  ? 

How,  indeed,  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  How  would 
the  cry  of  humanity  for  light  and  guidance  have  been 
answered?  how  would  it  not  rather  have  been  mocked 
and  scorned,  by  a  revelation  of  the  indefinite;  by  a 
revelation  of  mists  whereof  none  could  decide  the  fron- 
tiers, or  unfold  the  meaning,  or  insist  upon  the  worth  ? 
Such  a  revelation  would  have  in  fact  revealed  nothing; 
nothing  that  might  not  have  been  in  some  degree 
surmised  by  reason ;  nothing  that  could  invigorate  tlie 
heart  or  control  the  will.  And  in  Christianity  God  has  not 
disappointed  us.  He  has  not  contrived  to  say  much  with- 
out asserting  anything.  If  our  Heavenly  Father  has  not 
answered  the  petition  of  His  children  for  the  solid  bread  of 
truth  with  a  stone.  He  as  certainly  has  not  met  it  with  a 
transcendental  vapour. 


30       3-  Positive  character  of  a  trtie  i^eligion.  [Lect. 

3.  Thirdly,  a  real  answer  to  the  religious  needs  of  man 
must  be  positive.     It  must  state  what  is  truth,  and  not 
merely  what  is  not  truth.     The  soul  of  man  does  not  look 
inward  and  upward  only  in  the  hope  of  detecting  falsehoods: 
its  deepest  desire  is  to  know,  not  what  is  not,  but  what  is. 
Merely  negative  teachers  are  as  the  wind ;  they  destroy  but 
they  cannot  build ;  at  their  best  they  do  but  sweep  away  the 
unsubstantial  fictions  of  human  fancy  or  human  fraud,  but 
they  erect  nothing  solid  in  the  place  of  the  discarded  fictions. 
Positive  truth  alone  can  feed,  sustain,  invigorate  the  soul.    It 
is  no  support  in  the  hour  of  despondency  or  in  the  hour  of 
temj)tation  to  reflect  or  to  be  told  that  such  and  such  a 
doctrine  or  system  is  false.     Possibly  enough  it  is  false;  but 
what  then  ?    Does  a  sense  of  its  falsehood  nerve  the  will  to  do 
and  the  heart  to  sustain  when  action  and  endurance  are  hard  ? 
A  sense  of  falsehood  only  supplies  moral  power  so  long  and  so 
far  as  you  are  confronted  with  the  falsehood.     You  hate  the 
lie,  and  your  hatred  imports  force  into  your  contradiction ; 
you  loathe  the  idol,  and  a  righteous  scorn  nerves  your  arm  to 
shatter  it.     But  when  the  idol  has  been  pulverized  and  the 
lie  is  exploded,  your  force  is  gone.     Your  force  was  purely 
relative  to  the  objects  of  its  animosity,  and  it  perished  with 
them.     Nay,  more ;  even  while  they  lasted,  your  force  was 
good  for  nothing  beyond  and  beside  the  function  of  destroy- 
ing them.     Such  force  is  like  Jehu  ;  it  is  trenchant  energy 
so  long  as  vengeance  has  to  be  wreaked  upon  the  house  of 
Ahab;  but  it  is  abject  impotence  when  the  time  comes  for 
settling  the  polity  of  Israel  on  a  sure  foundation,  and  of 


L]         Unfrtcit fulness  of  I'eligioits  negations. 


storing  up  a  legacy  of  strength  and  safety  for  the  coming 
times.  Positive  doctrine,  on  the  other  hand  is,  or  ought  to 
be,  moral  power.  The  whisper  in  the  heart  of  the  moral 
fool,  "  there  is  no  God,"  can  never  add  to  his  stock  of  moral 
strength.  The  faith  of  the  Psalmist,  "  the  Lord  liveth,"  is  at 
once  followed  by  the  exclamation,  "  and  blessed  be  my 
strong  Helper,  and  praised  be  the  God  of  my  salvation."  ^ 
The  soul  caimot  rest  upon  the  void  which  is  the  result  of 
that  vast  negation :  it  can  and  does  draAV  comfort,  strength, 
support,  determination,  as  it  grasps  and  leans  upon  this 
greatest  of  all  assertions. 

This  is  a  point  which  requires  insisting  on,  especially 
in  an  age  of  criticism.  Here  and  there  criticism  may 
vindicate  an  affirmation ;  its  more  ordinary  occupation  is 
to  destroy.  It  almost  proceeds  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  soil  of  truth  is  encumbered  on  all  sides  with  brushwood 
and  rubbish,  and  that  it  can  scarcely  do  wrong  in  burning 
and  clearing  away  for  ever.  We  may  allow  that  there  is 
legitimate  and  useful  Avork  for  it  to  do  ;  but  it  is  not  the  less 
true  that  the  temper  of  mind  which  it  creates  is  prone  to 
entertain  a  most  serious  misapprehension  on  religious 
matters.  It  tends  to  beget  the  notion  that  religious  truth 
is  simply  negation — negation  of  false  beliefs,  negation  of 
superstitious  practices,  negation  of  the  errors  and  mistakes 
of  other  people ;  but  scarcely  anything  that  is  really  posi- 
tive, with  a  body  and  substance  of  its  own.  Very  many 
people    in  this    country,   especially   among    the  educated 

^  Ps.  xviii.  47. 


32  A  trite  religioii  has  negative  aspects.  [Lect. 

classes,  conceive  of  religion*  in  this  way,  and  to  their  own 
unspeakable  loss.  What  God  is  not,  what  Christ  is  not, 
what  the  atonement  and  work  of  Christ  are  not,  what 
prayer  is  not,  what  sacraments  are  not ; — these  are  the  ques- 
tions with  which  they  concern  themselves  almost  exclu- 
sively. Yet  the  only  question  that  is  lastingly  practical  is 
what  God,  Christ,  the  atonement,  prayer,  the  sacraments 
circ.  The  negative  conclusion  does  nothing  beyond  remov- 
ing one  or  more  misconceptions,  or  being  supposed  to  do 
so ;  or  rather  it  does  something  which  were  better  undone. 
It  satisfies  the  vague  sense  that  religion  is  too  important  a 
concern  to  be  entirely  passed  by :  it  furnishes  a  form  of 
interest  in  religion,  of  strictly  intellectual  interest,  that  may 
be  warranted  to  entail  no  practical  consequences.  And  thus 
the  half-awakened  conscience  is  again  lulled  to  sleep,  by  en- 
countering a  religious  idea  which  only  presents  itself  to  be 
discarded ;  and  the  eyes  of  the  spirit  close,  perhaps  for  ever. 
Do  I  say  that  a  true  faith  has  no  negative  aspects  ? 
Certainly  not.  The  Jewish  faith  was  a  negation  of  Poly- 
theism :  Christianity  is  a  negation  of  Polytheism,  and  of 
much  besides.  The  most  characteristic  writings  of  the  great 
Apostle  are  protests  against  false  ideas  of  the  work  of  Christ : 
the  most  elaborate  of  the  Catholic  creeds  contains  a 
repudiation  of  errors  which  deny  the  trutli  of  the  Divine 
Nature,  or  the  trutli  of  the  Person  of  Jesus.  But  in  these 
cases  the  negation  does  not  stand  alone ;  it  is  only  the 
inevitable  corollary  of  a  greater  affirmation.  Unlike  the 
dreary  criticism  which  makes  a   solitude   in   the  human 


I.]  A^.  Absohiteiiess  of  the  trice  religio7t.  33 

spirit,  and  then  sardonically  calls  it  peace,  the  negations 
of  the  Creed  do  but  remove  obstructions  to  its  positive 
statements:  they  clear  a  space  in  thought  for  laying  the 
foundations  and  raising  the  walls  of  a  solid  edifice,  within 
which  the  Divine  Architect  has  provided  for  the  most 
urgent  wants  of  man. 

4.  Yet  again,  if  man's  deepest  needs  are  to  be  satisfied, 
he  must  believe  that  his  creed  is  absolutely,  and  not  merely 
relatively,  true.  Eelative  truth — truth  which  is  true  only 
to  certain  persons  or  under  certain  circumstances — ceases 
to  be  truth  when  those  persons  and  circumstances  pass.  It 
is  transient ;  and  to  say  that  truth  is  transient,  is  to  qualify 
the  idea  of  truth  by  an  attribute  which  destroys  it.  Eela- 
tive truth  is  not  truth,  in  the  plain  sense  of  the  term ;  it  is 
only  opinion ;  it  is  opinion  which  in  the  event  proves  to  be 
unfounded. 

We  are  often  told  that  Christianity,  like  the  other 
positive  religions  of  the  world,  is  relatively  true ;  and 
hard  words  are  used  of  Christians,  who  say  that  its  truth  is 
absolute  if  it  be  true  at  all.  Yet  how  can  a  creed  profess  to  be 
relatively  true  without  admitting  itself  to  be  really  false  ? 
It  was  pardonable  in  Benhadad's  Syrians  to  suggest  that  the 
God  of  Israel  was  only  a  God  of  the  hills ;  but  no  believing 
Israelite  coidd  have  granted  this  without  denying  the  first 
article  of  his  creed.  And  Philosophy  has  sometimes  meant 
to  befriend  Christianity,  by  asserting  that  it  teaches  a  rela- 
tive truth.  She  bids  believers  make  the  best  of  it,  on  the 
ground  that  if  not  absolutely  true,  it  is  a  2:)hase  of  truth, 

D 


34       Worth  of '' relative''  triith  in  religion.  [Lect. 

true  to  tlie  believer,  true  provisionally,  although  liable  to  be 
superseded  by  a  higher  truth  in  days  to  come.  But  who 
could  make  the  most  of  a  creed  with  such  an  estimate  of  its 
worth  as  this  ?  Would  any  sensible  man  die  for  a  "  rela- 
tively true  "  religion  ?  Could  it  teach  him  the  duties  of 
prayer  or  self-sacrifice  ?  Would  he  live  for  it  ?  Would  he  be 
even  interested  for  long  in  a  philosophy  which  he  believed 
to  be  only  relatively  true  ?  Wliile  the  Ptolemaic  system 
of  the  heavens  lasted,  it  was  supposed  to  be  absolutely  true  : 
Would  the  ancient  world  have  listened  quietly  to  the 
Ptolemaic  teachers  had  it  suspected,  however  distantly,  the 
advent  of  a  Copernicus  ?  The  ceremonial  element  in  the 
Jewish  dispensation,  as  S.  Paul  has  taught  us,  was  only  of 
relative  authority.  But  it  was  believed  by  the  Jews  to  be 
absolute.  To  see  in  it  "a  figure  of  the  time  then  pre- 
sent," was  already  to  have  become  a  Christian,  Any  creed, 
whether  true  or  false,  must  claim  to  be  absolute,  or  it 
must  make  no  claim  at  all,  since  upon  faith  in  its  absolute 
truth  depends  the  necessity  and  reasonableness  of  all  the 
acts,  habits,  efforts,  sacrifices,  which  constitute  its  practical 
side — all  the  ventures,  in  short,  which  men  make  on 
account  of  it. 

To  say  that  Christianity  is  only  relatively  true  ;  that  it 
is  but  the  prelude  and  introduction  to  some  broader  reli- 
gion of  humanity,  which  will  in  time  supersede  it,  is,  in  fact, 
to  reject  Christianity.  Por  from  the  first  Christianity  has 
claimed  to  be  the  Universal  Eeligion.  It  was  destined  from 
the  first  to  embrace  the  whole  world ;  it  was  to  last  through- 


I.]       The  tC7iiversal  religion  imcst  be  absohite.       35 

out  tlie  ages.  "  Go  ye/'  said  its  Founder,  "  and  make  dis- 
ciples of  all  nations,  baptizing  tlieni  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost;"  and,  "lo, 
I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  ^ 
In  this  claim  of  universality,  whether  in  time  or  range  of 
empire,  there  lay  the  implied  and  further  claim  to  be  the 
Absolute  Eeligion — the  one  final  unveiling  of  the  Universal 
Father's  mind  before  the  eyes  of  His  children.^  This  con- 
viction underlies  S.  Paul's  earnest  apostolate  of  the  Gentiles 
in  the  face  of  active  Jewish  prejudice.  He  "owed"^  the 
absolute  religion,  as  he  could  have  owed  no  relative  religion 
whatever,  to  the  Greeks  and  to  the  Barbarians  alike,  to  the 
philosophers  and  to  the  uneducated.  To  his  eye  all  the 
deepest  divisions  of  country,  race,  and  station  vanished 
entirely  as  men  passed  within  the  Church.  "  There  is,"  he 
exclaimed,  "neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  un- 
circumcision.  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free,  but  Christ 
is  all,  and  in  all."  ^  A  religion  conscious  of  being  suitable 
only  to  particulal?  dates  or  localities  could  never  have 
originally  aspired  to  bring  within  the  range  of  its  influence 
all  the  varieties  of  race  and  thought  that  are  found  in  the 
human  family.  It  would  feel  its  unsuitableness  to  some 
races,  to  some  civilizations,  to  some  historical  periods,  if  not 
to  aU.  "  To  make  all  men  see  what  is  the  fellowshijo  of  the 
mystery  which  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  hath  been 

1  S.  Matt,  xxviii.  19,  20. 

-  Baur:  Vorlesungen  iiber  Neutestamentliche  Theologie,  p.  131. 

^  Rom.  i.  14. 

*Col.  iii.  11;  cf.  Gal.  iii.  28. 


36  5-  Provision  for  the  heart  and  zuill.    [Lect. 

hid  in  God,"  ^  was  an  ambition  approj^riate  "  to  the  faith 
once  for  all  delivered  to  the  Saints."  ^ 

5.  Lastly,  if  man's  religious  wants  are  to  he  answered,  his 
creed  must  s^^eak,  not  merely  to  his  inteUigence,  hut  to  his 
heart  ^nd  will.  He  cannot  really  rest  upon  the  most  unim- 
peachable abstractions.  He  needs  something  warmer  than  the 
truest  philosophy.  He  yearns  to  come  in  contact  with  a  heart ; 
and  no  religion  therefore  can  really  satisfy  him  which  does 
not  at  least  lead  him  to  know  and  love  a  person.  An  unseen 
Friend,  who  will  purify,  and  teach,  and  check,  and  lead,  and 
sustain  him : — that  is  his  great  necessity.  And  this  want, 
this  last  but  deepest  want  of  man's  religious  life,  Christi- 
anity has  satisfied.  As  humanity,  "  sitting  in  darkness  and 
in  the  shadow  of  death,"  pleads  with  the  Power  Whom  it 
feels  but  cannot  see — "  Shew  Thou  me  the  way  that  I 
should  walk  in,  for  I  lift  up  my  soul  unto  Thee  " — lo  !  the 
heavens  drop  down  from  above,  and  the  skies  pour  forth 
righteousness.  And  One  fairer  than  the  children  of  men 
presents  Himself  to  all  the  centuries  and  countries  of  the 
world  with  the  gracious  bidding,  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye 
that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  mil  give  you  rest."  ^ 

In  the  Lectures  which  are  to  follow  during  the  succeed- 
ing Sundays  of  Lent,  an  attempt  will  be  made  to  insist 
upon  some  of  the  truths  which  are  most  fundamentally 
related  to  the  soul's  religious  life,  as  they  come  into  contact 
with  some  forms  of  modern  thought.  Of  so  vast  a  subject 
a  few  fragments  are  all  that,  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 

i  Eph.  iii.  9.  2  S.  Jude  3.  »  S.  Matt.  xi.  28. 


L]  Anticipations  and  caittions.  37 

can  possibly  be  offered.  If  we  couid  say  all  that  could  be 
said,  such  truths  must  still  shade  off  into  the  unknown. 
But  we  may  at  least  endeavour  to  trace  what  w^e  can  see 
of  theu^  real  outline,  to  quicken  our  sense  of  their  positive 
contents,  to  deepen  our  convictions  of  their  absolute  and 
unchanging  significance,  to  enhance  the  influence  which  they 
already  exert  over  our  moral  natures.  It  is  not  well  that  such 
topics  should  be  approached  with  no  higher  purpose  than  that 
of  an  intellectual  enterprise.  If  w^e  do  not  mean  the  cry, 
"  Shew  Thou  me  the  way  that  I  should  walk  in,  for  I  lift 
up  my  soul  unto  Thee,"  it  w^ere  better  not  to  enter  on  the 
holy  ground.  Eeligion  indeed  must  always  command  the 
attention  of  practical  men,  because  it  is,  at  least,  one  of 
the  most  powerful  forces,  because  it  shapes  the  strongest 
passions,  that  can  govern  the  conduct  of  large  masses  of 
mankind.  It  also  will  ever  be  interesting  to  serious  thinkers, 
wdiether  they  accept  its  authority  or  not;  for  without 
controversy  it  has  a  w^ord  to  say  upon  the  highest  objects 
of  human  thought.  But  for  those  who  look  at  it,  not  only 
from  without  but  from  within,  not  as  a  toy  of  the  intellect, 
]3ut  as  a  necessity  of  the  soul,  it  must  be  something  more 
than  this.  If  there  be  any  truth  in  its  teachings  at  all,  if  its 
aspirations  be  anything  more  than  a  waste  of  heart  and  effort, 
lavished  through  centuries  upon  what  are  after  all  only 
weird  or  graceful  phantoms  of  the  brain,  then  nothing  that 
can  occupy  our  thoughts  can  really  compare  with  it  in  point 
of  absorbing  and  momentous  import.  Beyond  everything 
else,  it  must  have  imperious  claims  upon  the  time  and 


38  Anticipations  and  cautions.       [Lect.  I. 

tlioiiglit  and  working  power  of  every  human  being  who  has 
ever  felt,  in  any  serions  degree,  the  unspeakable  solemnity 
of  life  and  death.  May  God  endow  us  with  a  sense  of  this 
interest  in  that  which  binds  us  to  Himself,  or  may  He 
deepen  it ;  and  then,  in  answer  to  the  longings  which  in 
every  sincere  soul  it  will  assuredly  foster,  may  He  this  Lent 
be  mercifid  to  us,  each  and  all,  and  bless  us,  and  shew  us 
the  light  of  His  countenance,  and  be  merciful  unto  us  !  ^ 

1  Ps.  Ixvii.  1. 


LECTURE  11. 

Seconti  Sutttiag  in  ilent, 

GOD,  THE  OBJECT  OF  EELIGION. 

Ps.  xlii.  2. 

My  soul  is  athirst  for  God,  yea  even  for  the  living  God :  when  shall  I  come  to 
appear  before  the  presence  of  God  ? 

rriHEEE  is  scarcely,  even  in  the  Psalter,  a  more  touching 
-*-  psalm  than  this.  The  Psalmist  is  probably  an  exile 
of  the  early  Assyrian  period.  In  the  land  of  his  captivity, 
he  is  surrounded  by  all  the  institutions  of  an  established 
idolatry,  and,  as  he  sadly  reflects,  he  is  far  removed  from  the 
Holy  Home  of  the  race  of  Israel ;  from  the  place  which  the 
Lord  had  chosen  to  put  His  name  there ;  from  the  worship 
and  fellowship  of  the  sacred  commonwealth.  His  thought 
spans  the  intervening  desert,  and  he  dweUs  with  a  full  and 
aching  heart  on  all  that  lies  beyond  it.  He  remembers 
the  festival  services  in  Jerusalem  in  bygone  years,  wdien  he 
went  with  the  "multitude  keeping  holyday,"  when  he,too,had 
his  share  in  the  "  voice  of  joy  and  praise."  As  he  calls  up 
in  memory  this  cherished  part,  he  pours  out  his  soul  in  secret 
grief ;  and  while  the  cruel  heathen  around  taunt  him  with  the 


40  The '' liviiig''  God.  [Lect. 

insulting  question,  Where  is  thy  God  ?  he  can  only  find 
refuge  in  tears ;  his  tears,  as  he  tells  us,  flow  by  day  and 
by  night.  Wlien  will  the  long  years  of  exile  have  an  end  ? 
When  will  he  come  to  "  apj)ear  before  the  presence  of  God"  ? 
He  is  like  the  thirsty  stag,  panting  after  the  distant  water- 
brooks  ;  his  inmost  being  is  "  athirst  for  God,  yea  even  for 
the  living  God." 

"  The  living  God  !  "  What  a  strange,  yet  what  a  preg- 
nant phrase  !  Surely,  the  Author  of  Life  must  live ;  yet 
here  is  an  expression  which  hints  at  the  idea  of  deities  who 
are  not  alive.  It  was  thus  that  the  Hebrews  distinguished 
the  true  God  Who  had  revealed  Himself  to  their  ancestors 
from  the  false  gods  of  the  nations  around  tliem.  "  As  for 
all  the  gods  of  the  heathen,  they  are  but  idols;  but  it  is  the 
Lord  that  made  the  heavens."  ^  The  heathen  deities  were  so 
much  carving,  sculpture,  and  colouring;  or  they  were  so 
much  human  imagination  or  human  speculation ;  they  had 
no  being  independent  of  the  toil,  whether  of  the  hands  or  of 
the  brains  of  men.  They  had  no  existence  in  themselves  ; 
they  did  not  live,  whether  men  thought  about  them  or  not : 
as  we  should  say,  they  had  no  objective  existence.  It  was 
true  that  evil  spirits,  by  lurking  beneath  the  idol  forms,  or 
draping  themselves  in  the  debasing  fancies  of  the  heathen 
world,  might  contrive  to  appropriate  the  homage  which  the 
human  heart  in  its  darkness  lavished  uj)on  its  own  crea- 
tions ;  and  thus  the  Canaanites  are  said,  in  their  cruel 
Moloch-worship,   to   have   sacrificed  their  sons  and  their 

^  Ps.  xcvi,  5. 


II.]  Elements  of  trtUh  in  heathenism.  41 

daughters  unto  devils.^  But  the  broad  contrast,  latent  in 
the  expression  "  the  living  God,"  is  the  contrast  between 
imagination  and  fact ;  between  an  Existing  Being  and  a 
collection  of  fancy  personages ;  between  a  solemn  truth 
and  a  stupid  and  debasing  unreality. 

We  are  not  here  concerned  to  inquire  what  elements  of 
truth  there  may  have  been  in  the  forms  of  heathen  worship 
with  which  the  Jews  came  into  contact.  -  Some  truth  there 
certainly  was  in  the  most  degraded  of  them ;  since  a  religion 
which  is  pure  undiluted  falsehood  could  not  continue  to 
exist  as  a  religion,  and  the  false  religions  which  do  exist, 
only  exist  by  virtue  of  the  elements  of  truth  which  in  varying 
proportions  they  severally  contain.  The  lowest  fetichism 
witnesses  to  the  great  truth,  that  man  must  go  out  of  himself 
in  order  to  seek  for  an  adequate  object  of  his  heart-felt 
devotion — of  his  highest  enthusiasms.  And  no  instructed 
Christian  would  deny  that  certain  forms  of  heathenism 
embrace  incidentally  the  recognition  of  considerable  dis- 
tricts of  fundamental  truth.  If,  indeed,  as  S.  Paul  says, 
God  teaches  all  men  uj)  to  a  certain  point  through  nature 
and  conscience,^  it  could  not  be  otherwise;  and  this  inter- 
mixture of  truth,  which  is  thus  latent  in  all  heathenism, 

1  Ps.  cvi.  37. 

2  On  the  "Dispensation  of  Paganism,"  see  NewTiian's  *'Arians  of  the 
Fourth  Century,"  pp.  87-91 ;  and  the  quotation  from  S.  Clem.  Alex.  Strom, 
vii.  2.  "  He  (the  Word)  it  is  who  gives  to  the  Greeks  their  philosophy.  .  .  . 
His  revelations,  both  the  former  and  the  latter,  are  drawn  forth  from  one 
fount ;  those  who  were  before  the  Law,  not  suffered  to  be  without  Law ; 
those  who  do  not  hear  the  JeAvish  philosophy,  not  surrendered  to  an  unl)ridled 
course." 

3  Eom.  i.  19,  20. 


42    Heathe7iisrn  Jiozu  estimatedin  Scrip ttti^e.  [Lect. 

yields  the  best  starting-point  for  convincing  heathens  of  the 
errors  which  they  admit,  and  of  the  truths  which  they  deny 
beyond.  '^  In  this  sense,  undoubtedly,  the  science,  which  has 
been  of  late  named  Comparative  Theology,  may  be  made 
really  serviceable  to  the  interests  of  Christian  truth.  It  is 
a  widely  different  thing  to  start  with  an  assumption  that  all 
the  positive  religions  in  the  world,  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
revelations  included,  are  alike  conglomerate  formations  in 
very  varying  degrees,  partly  true  and  partly  false ;  and  that 
the  religion  of  the  future — an  etherealized  abstraction,  to 
be  distilled  by  science  from  all  the  creeds  and  worships  of 
mankind — will  be  something  beyond,  and  distinct  from  all 
of  them.  Certainly  heathenism  is  not  treated,  either  in  the 
Old  Testament  or  in  the  New,  with  the  tenderness  which 
would  befit  such  an  anticipation  as  this.  Practically  speak- 
ing, and  as  contrasted  with  the  revealed  truth,  whether 
Jewish  or  Christian,  heathenism  is  represented  as  a  lie.  To 
live  within  its  territorial  range  is  to  live  in  the  kingdom 
of  darkness  ;  ^^  to  practise  its  rites  is  to  be  an  enemy  to  God 
by  wicked  works  ;  ^  to  go  after  false  gods  is  to  have  the 
earnest  of  great  trouble,^  and  to  provoke  the  anger  of  the 
real  Lord  of  the  Universe.  The  Assyrian  idols  did  not  raise 
in  the  exile's  mind  any  question  as  to  the  stray  elements  of 
truth  which  might  be  u.nderlying  so  much  tawdry  and  impure 
error.     "  My  soul,"  he  cried,  ''  is  athirst  for  God,  yea  even 

^  So  S.  Clem.  Alex,  speaks  of  Greek  pliilosophy  as  viro^ddpav  ovaav  t^s 
Kara  Xpiarbv  (pLXoao(pias^ — Strom,  vi.,  qu.  by  Newman,  ubi  sup. 
2  Is.  Ix.  2  ;  1  Pet.  ii.  9.  s  (3ol.  i.  21. 

*  Ps.  Ixxviii.  59,  60  ;  cvi.  36-40. 


IL]  God,  the  object  of  the  SoiiVs  thirst.  43 

for  the  li\dng  God :  when  shall  I  come  to  appear  before  the 
presence  of  God  ? " 

The  language  of  this  exile  is  in  truth  the  language  of  the 
human  heart,  under  the  stress  of  the  purest  and  deepest 
desire  that  man  can  know.  In  this  life  man  is  an  exile  ;  he 
is  parted  from  his  true  home  and  country ;  he  is  the  victim 
of  an  unconquerable  restlessness.  This  restlessness  of  the 
mind — this  "wasting  fever  of  the  heart"  of  man — this 
unwillingness  to  be  satisfied  with  any  earthly  good — 
attracted  the  attention  of  ancient  thinkers.  But  they  did 
not  understand  its  secret.  They  would  fain  have  accounted 
for  it  by  pointing  to  some  fatal  warp  or  flaw  in  human 
nature;  or  they  would  have  silenced  it  by  the  tentative 
guesses  of  successive  philosophies,  moving  in  cycles  which 
ended  in  proclaiming  that  nothing  beyond  the  province  of 
sense  is  trustworthy ;  or  they  would  have  buried  it  beneath 
the  cares  of  business,  or  the  cares  of  empire,  or  the  grosser 
attractions  of  sensual  pleasure.  But  again  and  again  the 
human  heart  has  protested  against  these  endeavours  to 
crush  the  noblest  of  its  aspirations ;  and  history  again  and 
again  has  echoed  with  the  cry,  "My  soul  is  athirst," 
not  for  pleasures  which  may  degrade,  nor  yet  for  philo- 
sophies which  may  disappoint,  but  for  the  Pure,  the 
Absolute,  the  Everlasting  Being.  "  My  soul  is  athirst  for 
God :  when  shall  I  come  to  appear  before  the  presence  of 
God?" 

Was  this  cry  ever  heard  more  distinctly  by  those  who 
have  ears  to  hear  the  voices  of  the  spiritual  world  than  in 


44  The  thirst  of  the  Soul,  how  [Lect. 

our  own  generation  ?  The  passion,  or,  as  tlie  Psalmist  phrases 
it,  the  thirst  for  God — the  strong  desire  of  the  soul  mounting 
towards  Him  with  all  the  agonized  earnestness  of  a  disap- 
pointed and  tortured  sense — speaks,  not  merely  or  chiefly  in 
churches  and  pulpits,  but  in  magazines,  in  newspapers,  in 
social  gatherings,  in  political  assemblies,  with  a  fervour  and 
decision  which  would  have  startled  the  age  of  George  III. 
The  pulse  of  this  desire  is  felt  outside  the  Christian  camp  ; 
it  quickens  the  very  enthusiasms  of  error  and  paradox;  often 
enough,  it  mistakes  friends  for  foes  and  foes  for  friends;  but 
it  is  generally  sincere,  vehement,  intolerant  of  delay  and 
trifling.  "  ]\Iy  soul  is  athirst  for  God,  yea  even  for  the 
living  God,"  is  the  desire  of  desires ;  it  really  underlies  and 
explains  all  others  that  are  not  purely  brutal  in  this  Europe, 
this  England  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Let  us  see  how 
it  fares — this  thirst  for  God — at  the  hands  of  some  great 
speculative  systems  which  more  particularly  challenge 
attention  in  the  present  day. 


I. 

High  in  the  world  of  thought,  if  we  determine  its  place 
by  the  intellectual  forces  which  it  can  at  present  muster, 
while  we  refuse  to  adopt  any  truer  and  worthier  rule  of 
measurement,  lies  the  camp  of  the  Materialists.  Material- 
ism is  sometimes  digested  into  a  system ;  sometimes  it  is 
little  more  than  an  intellectual  tendency.     Occasionally  it 


11.  ]  satisfied  by  Materialism.  45 

displays  the  constructive  entliusiasm  together  with  the  stiff, 
and,  perhaps,  pedantic  livery  of  Positivism:  more  frequently, 
it  is  shy  of  committing  itself  to  positive  theories,  while  it  is 
consistently  earnest  in  resenting  all  attempts  to  base  know- 
ledge upon  anything  besides  the  verdict  of  sense.  It  bids  us 
believe  what  we  can  see  and  smell,  and  taste  and  touch ;  it 
invites  us  to  make  such  generalizations  as  we  can  out  of  the 
repoi-t  wdiich  om-  senses  bring  to  us.  Thus,  it  assures  us, 
will  the  mighty  universe  in  which  we  live  reveal  itself  to 
us ;  and  we  shall  learn  to  perceive  in  it  two,  and  only  two, 
elements  in  the  last  analysis, — a  kingdom  of  matter,  that 
is  apparently  eternal,  unceasingly,  infinitely  modified  by 
eternal  force.  How  this  force  and  that  matter  came  to  be, 
it  knows  not :  it  affirms,  as  it  denies  nothing.  A  philosophy 
that  is  positive  does  not  concern  itself  with  the  origin 
of  the  universe,  "  if  it  ever  had  one,"  or  with  what  hap- 
pens to  living  beings  after  their  death.  ^  Of  this  eternal 
interfusion  of  force  with  matter,  man  himself  is  only  a  ripe 
and  very  complex  product.  There  is  nothing  in  him  for 
which  his  chemistry  cannot  give  an  account :  his  intelli- 
gence is  exactly  proportioned  to  the  mass  of  his  brain :  his 
thought  is  "  but  the  expression  of  molecular  changes  in  the 
physical  matter  of  his  life:"^  his  thought  is  impossible 
without  phosphorus ;  his  consciousness  is  only  a  property 
of  matter :  ^  his  virtue  is  the  result  of  a  current  of  electri- 

*  Paroles  de  Philosophie  Positive,  p.  31,  qu.  by  Bp.  Dupaiiloup. 
2  Fortn,  Rev.,  1869. 

2  Biichner,  Kraft  und  Stoft,   §   122.      Ohne   Phosphor  kein  Gedanke, 
.     .     .     .     auch  das  Bewusstsein  ist  iiichts  als  eine  Eiseiischaft  des  StofFes. 


46  The  thirst  of  the  Soul,  how  [Lect. 

city ;  his  virtue  and  his  vice  are  strictly  due  to  his  natural 
organization,  they  are  "  products  in  the  same  sense  as  are 
sugar  and  vitriol."  All  that  he  can  do,  either  with  himself 
or  with  the  world  around  him,  is  to  search  out  and  to  re- 
gister the  several  qualities  of  matter,  and  to  number  and 
measure  the  ever-shifting  forms  of  the  force  which  governs 
it.  There  may  be  something  beyond  matter  and  force 
— who  knows  ?  But  science,  which  deals  only  with  posi- 
tive realities,  cannot  concern  herseK  with,  as  she  does  not 
need,  "  such  an  hypothesis  "  as  God.  Can  God  be  verified 
by  the  senses  ?  Is  He  not  a  phantom  that  belongs  properly 
to  the  childhood  of  humanity  ?  Is  He  not  an  anachronism 
in  a  scientific  age  ?^  What  is  He,  then,  whom  men  com- 
monly name  God  ?  God,  says  Feuerbach,  whose  Panthe- 
ism is  really  Materialism,  is  only  "  the  nature  of  man 
regarded  as  absolute  truth  ;"  "  that  which  is  given  to  man's 
God,  is  in  truth  given  to  man  himself;"  "what  a  man 
declares  concerning  God,  he  in  truth  declares  concerning 
himself;"  "the  Divine  activity  is  not  distinct  from  the 
human ;"  "  in  God  man  has  only  his  own  activity  as  an 
object ;"  "  the  mystery  of  the  inexhaustible  fulness  of  the 
Divine  predicates  is  nothing  else  than  the  mystery  of 
human  nature  considered  as  an  infinitely  varied,  infinitely 
modifiable,  but  consequently  phenomenal  being."  ^  In 
other  words,  God  does  not  exist  apart  from  the  mind  and 
imagination  of  man ;  He  is  only  its  creation,  and  has  no 

1  See  Conservation,  E^volution,  Positivisme,  p.  70,  qu,  by  Dupanloup, 
I'Ath^isme,  p.  70. 


11. ]  satisfied  by  Materialism.  47 

rightful   place   in    the   region    of   serious    and    scientific 
thought. 

This  is  not,  I  trust,  a  misrepresentation  of  the  language 
of  contemporary  Materialism :  and  J^^hatever  else  may  be 
said  of  it,  this  at  least  is  certain,  that  it  does  nothing 
whatever  towards  satisfying  that  great  desire  or  "  thirst " 
for  communion  with  a  Higher  Being,  of  which,  in  his  best 
and  highest  moods,  man  is  so  profoundly  conscious.  It 
denies,  if  not  that  any  such  being  really  exists,  at  least  that 
we  can  know  Him  to  be  really  existing.  They  who  have 
no  satisfaction  to  ofier  to  a  need  naturally  condemn  the 
demand  for  one :  they  wdio  have  no  answer  to  give,  would 
rather  not  be  questioned.  And  yet  the  religious  side  of  man's 
nature  is  a  fact  of  which  a  philosophy  of  experience  should 
surely  take  account.  Upon  what  is  man's  religious  instinct 
to  spend  itself  in  the  Materialistic  universe  ?  Upon  that 
phantom-god  who,  as  we  are  told,  is  only  a  pale  reflection 
of  human  vanity  ?  But  the  soul  asks  for  reality,  and  can- 
not occupy  itself  with  a  confessed  shadow.  Upon  that 
eternal  flux  of  self-existent  matter?  upon  that  ceaseless 
activity  of  self-existing  force  ?  But  is  there  anything  in 
mere  force  or  matter,  or  in  both  combined,  I  will  not  say 
to  satisfy  a  passion  which  is  purest  and  strongest  in  saintly 
men,  but  even  to  have  any  contact  with  or  relation  towards 
it  whatever  ?  How  can  that  which  is  purely  physical  touch 
the  sense  which  appreciates  a  moral  world  ?  It  is  a  merit 
of  Auguste  Comte  to  have  recognized  the  necessity  of  some 
answer;  and  he  tells  us  that  it  is  our  privilege  and  our 


48  The  Positivist  deity.  [Lect. 

business  to  love,  reverence,  and  worship  "  a  Being,  immense 
and  eternal — Humanity."^  Not,  mark  you,  a  sinless  and 
Divine  representative  of  tlie  race,  sucli  as  we  Christians 
adore  in  the  Incarnate  Jesus,  seated  as  He  is  at  the  right 
hand  of  the  Father.  Not  even  an  idealized  abstraction, 
which,  in  the  pure  realms  of  thought,  might  conceivably  be  • 
separated  from  the  weaknesses  and  degTadations  of  the 
sum-total  of  human  flesh  and  blood.  But  this  very  collec- 
tive human  family  itself,  in  all  ages  and  of  all  conditions, 
viewed  as  one  organism ;  this  human  family,  not  merely 
illuminated  by  its  struggles,  its  sufferings,  its  victories,  but 
also  weighted  with  its  crimes,  its  brutalities,  its  deep  and 
hideous  degradations.  It  might  be  thought  that  "  we  men 
know  man  too  well  to  care  to  worship  him."  Yet,  seriously, 
this  is  the  god  who  is  to  supersede  the  Most  Holy  Trinity, 
when  Positivism  has  won  its  way  to  empire  in  European 
thought.  Will  he,  think  you,  satisfy  the  mighty  thirst  of 
the  human  soul  ?  What  does  this  thirst  mean  but  man's 
endeavour  to  escape  from  himself,  to  rise  to  an  ideal,  or 
rather  to  a  reality  above  himself,  to  lose  himself  in  a  Being 
who  is  greater,  wiser,  better  than  himself?  Yet  here  he 
is  bidden,  in  the  name,  if  without  the  sanction  of  the 
most  recent  science,  to  seek  the  object  of  his  trust  and 
worship  within  himself,  since  nothing  higher  than  him- 
self is  really  cognizable  by  his  understanding.  It  is 
clear  that  teachers  who  do  not  believe  in  a  living 
God  must  leave  one  side,  and  that  the  highest,  of  human 

1  Cat.  Pos.  Int. 


IL]  Revolt  of  the  human  mind  against  A  theism.    49 

nature  altogether  uncared  for ;  since  in  truth  they  have 
nothing  to  say  to  it.  And  history  does  not  smile  upon 
materialistic  attempts  to  bribe  the  religious  yearnings  of 
the  soul  of  man.  Atheism  could  indeed,  on  one  fatal  day, 
throne  naked  vice  as  the  goddess  Eeason  upon  the  high 
altar  of  a  Christian  basilica,  while  an  apostate  archbishop 
lent  his  presence  to  the  hideous  ceremony ;  but  it  was  one 
thing  to  obey  the  interested  or  sentimental  fanaticism  of 
the  Jacobin  Clubs,  and  quite  another  permanently  to 
control  the  heart  and  convictions  even  of  the  Voltairianized 
multitudes  of  Paris.  ^  The  realities  of  religion  might  have 
been  hated ;  but  this  godless  parody  of  worship  could  only 
provoke  a  languid  contempt. 


II. 

Against  Materialism,  in  all  its  forms,  the  common  sense 
of  man,  not  to  speak  of  his  religious  instinct,  will  ever 
protest.  The  idea  or  presentiment  of  God,  everywhere 
rooted  in  the  mind  of  man,  is  a  fact  sufficiently  important 
to  be  treated  as  something  better  than  a  superstition  by 
those  who  put  forward  any  serious  doctrine  about  human 

^  Pressens^,  L'Eglise  et  la  Revolution  rran9aise,  p.  280.  *'  II  ne  resta  de 
ce  jour  que  le  souvenir  d'une  stupide  parodie  qui  vengeait  k  elle  seule  la 
religion  sainte  que  Ton  avait  voulu  fouler  aux  pieds.  C'est  en  vain  que  pour 
ranimer  la  ferveur  on  rempla^a  h,  Paris  et  dans  les  ddpartements  les  actrices 
par  les  jjrostitu^es.  L' ennui  et  le  ddgotit  frappferent  le  nouveau  culte  d^s 
ses  debuts. 

E 


50  The  world-wide  feeling  after  God.       [Lect. 

nature.  A  mental  fact  is  as  worthy  of  attention  as  any 
fact  which  can  be  appraised  in  a  chemical  laboratory  or  on 
the  roof  of  an  observatory.  Cicero's  statement  ^  that  there 
is  no  nation  so  barbarous  and  wild  as  not  to  have  believed 
in  some  divinity,  is  still,  notwithstanding  certain  apparent 
exceptions,  true.  A  nation  of  pure  Atheists  is  yet  to  be 
discovered. "  Unworthy  and  degraded  as  are  many  of  the 
beliefs  on  the  subject  of  a  Higher  Power  that  are  to  be 
found  in  the  heathen  world,  some  groping  after  the  Great 
Unseen,  some  tentative  intuition,  some  shadowy  belief  there 
is  to  be  found  always  and  everywhere.  Man  thinks  of  a 
Higher   Power   as   naturally  as  he  thinks   of   the  world 

^  Cic.  de  Legibus,  i.  8.  Itaque  ex  tot  generibus  nullum  est  animal  praeter 
hominem  quod  habeat  notitiam  aliquam  dei  :  ipsisque  in  hominibus  nulla 
gens  est  neque  tam  immansueta  neque  tam  fera,  quae  non,  etiam  si  ignorat 
qualem  habere  deum  deceat,  tamen  habendum  sciat.  Tuscul.  Disput.,  i.  13. 
Ut  porro  finnissunum  hoc  afFerri  videtur,  cur  deos  esse  credamus,  quod  nulla 
gens  tam  fera,  nemo  omnium  tam  sit  immanis,  cujus  mentem  non  imbuerit 
deorum  opinio: — multi  de  diis  prava  sentiunt  (id  enim  vitioso  more  effici 
solet) ;  omnes  tamen  esse  vim  et  naturam  divinam  arbitrantur :  nee  vero  id 
collocutio  hominum  aut  consensus  effecit ;  non  institutis  opinio  est  confirmata, 
non  legibus.  Omni  autem  in  re  consentio  omnium  gentium  lex  naturae 
putanda  est. 

^  Cf.  Diderot,  Philosophie  des  Canadiens.  CEuvres,  I.  p.  433.  Max 
Miiller,  "  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop."  "  There  is  perhaps  no  race  of 
men  so  low  and  degraded  as  the  Papuas.  It  has  frequently  been  asserted 
that  they  have  no  religion  at  all,  and  yet  these  same  Papuas,  if  they  want 
to  know  whether  what  they  are  going  to  undertake  is  right  or  wrong,  squat 
before  their  karwar,  clasp  the  hands  over  the  forehead,  and  bow  repeatedly, 
at  the  same  time  stating  their  intentions.  If  they  are  seized  with  any 
nervous  feeling  during  this  time,  it  is  considered  as  a  bad  sign,  and  the  pro- 
ject is  abandoned  for  a  time  ;  if  otherwise,  the  idol  is  supposed  to  approve. 
Here  we  have  but  to  translate  what  they  in  their  helpless  language  call 
'nervous  feeling'  by  our  word  'conscience,'  and  we  shall  not  only  under- 
stand what  they  really  mean,  but  confess,  perhaps,  that  it  would  be  well  for 
us  if,  in  our  own  hearts,  the  karwar  occupied  the  same  prominent  i>lace 
which  it  occupies  in  the  cottage  of  every  Papua.*' 


11.  ]   The  thonght  ofGodlateiit  in  the  human  mind.  5 1 

around  him,  or  of  himself.  Nay,  he  thinks  of  Truth  ; 
and  truth  is  no  mere  abstraction ;  it  is  a  Eeal  Beinsf ; 
it  is  God.  1  He  thinks  of  the  Infinite,  says  Fenelon,  as  he 
thinks  of  the  circle,  of  tlie  line,  of  the  distinction  between 
whole  and  part,^  The  spontaneous  activity  of  his  con- 
sciousness brings  with  it,  contains  in  itself,  the  thought  of 
One  who  is  greater,  if  not  also  stronger,  wiser,  better  than 
all  else ;  and  that  man  should  thus  think  of  Him,  is  of 
itself  a  presumption  that  He  really  exists.^  This  instinc- 
tive perception  and  affirmation  of  God  is  indeed  not  merely 
an  act  of  the  intellect ;  it  is  also,  as  will  be  insisted  on  pre- 
sently, perhaps  it  is  chiefly,  an  act  of  the  moral  sense,  an 
act  of  the  conscience.     It  is  that  upward  attraction  of  the 

^  Plat.  Repub.  vii.  517. 

^  De  Texistence  de  Dieu,  1®'®  partie,  p.  60.  L'id^e  de  Tinfini  est  en  moi 
comma  celle  des  nombres,  des  lignes,  des  cercles,  d'un  tout  et  d'une  partie. 
Changer  nos  id^es  ce  serait  an^antir  la  raison  meme. 

^  The  ontological  "  argument  *'  for  the  existence  of  God  is  stated  in  vary- 
ing degrees  of  completeness  by  S.  Augustine,  Boethius,  S.  Anselm,  and 
Descartes.  To  cite  the  two  last,  S.  Ans.  Proslog.  2,  convincitur  etiam 
insipiens  (Ps.  xiv.  1)  esse  vel  in  intellectu  aliquid  quo  nihil  majus  cogitari 
potest.  Et  certfe  id  quo  majus  cogitari  nequit  non  potest  esse  in  intellectu 
solo.  Si  enim  vel  in  solo  intellectu  est,  potest  cogitari  esse  et  in  re  quod 
majus  est  Si  ergo  id  quo  majus  cogitari  non  potest  est  in  intellectu  ;  id 
ipsum,  quo  majus  cogitari  non  potest  est  quo  majus  cogitari  potest :  sed 
certfe  hoc  esse  non  potest.  Existit  ergo  procul  dubio  aliquid  quo  majus 
cogitari  non  valet,  et  in  intellectu  et  in  re.  Descartes  observes  (Medit. 
de  Prim.  Philos.  3,  4,  sub  fin.)  "  notiones  nostras  esse  aut  adventitias, 
aut  factitias,  aut  innatas.  Ideam  de  Deo  non  esse  adventitiam,  Deum 
enim  non  experienti^  duce  reperiri  ;  neque  factitiam,  nam  non  arbitrio 
a  nobis  effictam  esse;  ergo  esse  innatam,  sive  a  Deo  ii)so  nobis  suppe- 
ditatam."  This  is  undoubtedly  the  weakest  of  the  arguments  for  God's 
existence  ;  but  its  real  value  should  not  be  mistaken  on  account  of  the 
facility  with  which  it  lends  itself  to  the  Hegelian  doctrine  that  "  God  is 
only  God  in  so  far  as  He  has  knowledge  of  Himself  ;  but  His  self-knowledge 
is  '  sein  selbst  bewusstseyn  in  Menschen  und  das  Wis^'en  des  Menschen  von 
Gott'  "  (Encycl.  p.  576,  qu.  by  Grimm). 


5  2     Instinctive  apprehension  precedes  proof.    [Lect. 

soul  upon  which  Plato  dilates  ;i  it  is  the  universal  hypo- 
thesis which  Aristotle  registers  ;2  it  is  the  world-wide 
prejudice  of  Epicurus ;  it  is  the  "  anticipation  "  naturally 
imbedded  in  the  human  mind,  of  Cicero.  ^  It  precedes  de- 
monstration ;  it  is  out  of  the  reach  of  criticism ;  it  resists 
hostile  argument.  It  is,  speaking  philosophically,  a  fact 
in  psychological  science,  and  a  fact  so  fruitful  and  stimu- 
lating, that  to  it  must  be  traced  all  in  human  life  and 
effoi-t  that  looks  really  upward, — man's  love  of  truth,  his 
clinging  to  a  coming  life,  his  aspirations  to  rise  above  the 
level  of  animal  existence.  It  is,  speaking  religiously,  in 
its  way,  a  revelation ;  it  is  a  revelation  of  God  within,  as  S. 
Paul  says,  answering  to  the  revelation  of  God  from  without; 
it  sets  man's  thought  in  motion  as  he  gazes  upon  the 
natural  world,  and  bids  him  not  to  rest  until  he  has  wrung 
from  it  a  disclosure  of  the  highest  truth  which  it  has  to 
teach  him. 

And  thus,  with  this  preparatory  idea  or  intuition  of  a 
Divinity,  the  human  mind  approaches  what  are  caUed  the 

1  Cf.  the  whole  passage  in  Plato,  de  Legibus,  ix.  x.  899,  c.  d.  e.,  qu.  by 
Staudenmaier,  Dogm.  II.  22. 

2  Arist.  de  Coelo,  1-3.  iravTe^  yap  a.vBpwn-OL  irepl  OeQ^v  'ixovffiv  vir6\r}\l^LV, 
Kul  iravres  tov  avwTaroi  t($  deicp  rdirov  d7ro§t56acri.  Referred  to  by  Stauden- 
maier, ubi.  sup. 

3  Cic.  de  Nat.  Deorum,  i.  16.  Solus  enim  vidit  [Epicurus]  primum  esse 
deos,  quod  in  omnium  animis  eorum  notionem  impressisset  ipsa  natura. 
Quffi  est  enim  gens,  aut  quod  genus  hominum,  quod  non  habeat  sine 
doctrina  anticipationem  quandam  decorum  ?  quam  appellat  wpdXv^iv  Epi- 
curus, id  est  anteceptam  animo  rei  quandam  informationem,  sine  qua  nee 
intelligi  quidquam,  nee  quaeri,  nee  disputari  potest.  Cujus  rationis  vim 
atque  utiUtatem  ex  illo  coelesti  Epicmi  de  regula  et  judicio  volumine  acce- 
pimus. 


11. ]  The  Cosmological  Argument.  53 

proofs  of  God's  existence.  Looking  out  upon  the  universe 
around  it,  the  mind  seeks  for  its  productive  cause.  ^  What- 
ever efforts  may  have  been  made  by  recent  writers  to  reduce 
causation  to  mere  antecedence,  the  law  of  causation  is  at 
once  a  primary  law  of  human  thought  and  of  the  world 
without  us.  ^  What  cause,  what  force,  preceded  and  brought 
into  existence  this  universe  ?  All  the  causes  with  which 
we  come  in  contact  here,  are,  as  we  term  them,  second 
causes ;  but  they  point  to  a  cause  beyond  themselves,  to  a 
cause  of  causes,  to  a  supreme  all-producing  Cause,  Itself 
uncaused,  unoriginate.  The  heavenly  bodies  move  on  un- 
ceasingly in  their  orbits,  obedient  to  the  laws  of  gravita- 
tion, but  no  law  of  gravitation  could  have  assigned  them 
their  place  in  space.  ^  The  whole  universe  bids  us  look 
beyond  itself  for  the  adequate  explanation  of  its  existence. 
"  So  far  is  it  from  being  true,"  says  Lord  Bacon,  "  that  the 

^  The  cosmoloffical  proof  of  God's  existence  is  Btated  with  great  beauty 
and  variety  of  illustration  by  Fenelon,  Traits  de  I'existence  et  des  Attributs 
de  Dieu,  e.  1,  2.  To  the  original  form  of  the  argument  which,  looking  upon 
the  world  as  an  effect,  seeks  for  its  cause,  Leibnitz  adds  a  second,  based 
upon  the  contingent  nature  of  the  world  and  its  several  parts,  which  obliges 
us  to  seek  in  the  wpQTou  kivovv,  or  First  Cause,  the  Unchanging  and  intrin- 
sically Necessary  Being.  This  Necessary  Being  is  not,  as  Strauss  says, 
the  "  ewiges  Grundwesen  der  Welt,"  or  the  permanent  material  of  the 
universe,  as  distinct  from  its  ever-changing  forms  ;  because  the  necessity  of 
seeking  a  first  cause  obliges  us  to  go  beyond  the  universe,  which,  as  a  whole, 
is  an  effect.  On  the  other  hand,  the  cosmological  argument  does  not  of 
itself  lead  us  to  a  moral  God,  such  as  would  satisfy  the  instincts  of  piety — 
the  "  thirst  "  of  the  soul. 

'^  Cf.  M'Ccjsh,  "  Method  of  the  Divine  Government,"  Appendices  III.  and 
IV. 

3  Newton,  Philos.  Nat.  Princip.  L.  III.  schol.  gen.  Perseverabunt  quidem 
in  orbibus  suis  per  leges  gravitatis,  sed  regularem  orbium  situm  primitua 
acquirire  per  has  leges  minimi  potuerunt. 


54    The  first  cause  the  Highest  Intelligence.    [Lect. 

explanation  of  phenomena  by  natural  causes  leads  us  away 
from  God  and  His  Providence,  that  those  philosophers  who 
have  passed  their  lives  in  discovering  such  causes  can 
find  nothing  that  affords  a  final  explanation  without  having 
recourse  to  God  and  His  Providence."^  The  father  of  the 
inductive  philosophy  does  but  speak  the  common  sense  of 
religion ;  but  will  it  be  maintained,  except  by  writers  who 
are  prepared  to  deny  the  existence  of  causation,  that  he 
does  not  also  utter  the  common  sense  of  scientific  thought  ? 
Does  the  universe  tell  us  anything  as  to  the  nature  of 
its  First  Cause  ?  Surely  we  may  at  least  presume  that  the 
Author  of  the  natural  world  must  be  higher  and  greater 
than  anything  in  the  natural  world.  ^  Water  will  not  rise 
above  its  source ;  and  it  is  inconceivable  that,  if  there  be 
an  Author  of  nature  at  all,  His  Self-existent  Life  must  not 
be  higher  and  nobler  than  any  life  which  He  has  bestowed. 
Who  does  not  see  the  force  of  the  Psalmist's  argument, 
"  He  that  made  the  ear,  shall  He  not  hear  ?  and  He  that 
gave  the  eye,  shall  He  not  see  ?"^     Above  the  life  of  the 

^  De  Augm.  Scient.,  iii.  4.  Adeo  ut  tan  turn  absit  ut  causae  physicae 
hominem  \  Deo  et  Providently  abducant,  ut  contra  potitis  philosoplii  illi  qui 
in  iisdem  eruendis  occupati  fuerunt,  nullum  exitum  rei  reperiant,  nisi  pos- 
tremb  ad  Deum  et  providentiam  confugiant. 

2  That  the  one  true  God  may  be  kno-wTi  from  His  works  in  Nature  is 
taught,  as  against  Gentile  idolatry,  in  Isaiah  xliv.  ;  xlv.  18,  sqq.  ;  Acts  xiv. 
15-17  ;  xvii.  22,  sqq^.  ;  Rom.  i.  19-20.  That  the  natural  world  witnesses  to 
the  beauty  of  His  Being  and  Attributes  is  implied  in  Psalms  viii.  2-4  ;  xix. 
1,  sqq.  ;  civ.,  passim,  &c.  Holy  Scripture,  of  course,  does  not  demonstrate 
the  existence  of  Him  Whose  true  Nature  it  unveils  ;  but  it  points  to  the 
natural  world  as  involving  for  all  reasoning  beings  the  privilege  and  the 
responsibility  of  some  knowledge  of  its  Author's  existence,  and  of  His 
character. 

2  Ps.  xciv.  9. 


11. ]  The  Teleological  Argument,  55 

tree,  there  is.  that  of  the  animal ;  above  that  of  the  animal, 
there  is  the  life  of  man.  Man,  with  all  his  ingenuity  and 
will,  cannot  produce  a  leaf  or  a  shell-fish :  and  is  it  to  be 
supposed  that  the  author  of  man's  life  is  less  endowed  with 
thought  and  volition  than  man  ?  We  may  paraphrase  the 
Psalmist :  He  That  made  the  human  intellect,  shall  He  not 
think  ?  And  how  came  it  to  exist,  if  He  did  not  make  it  ?  ^ 
There  are  chasms  in  the  natural  world  which  no  theories 
substituting  a  fated  self-development  for  the  free  action  of 
God  will  really  bridge  over.  There  is  the  chasm  between 
the  inorganic  and  the  organic;  the  chasm  between  the 
lifeless  and  that  which  lives ;  the  chasm  between  animal 
instinct  and  the  reflective  consciousness.  At  each  of  these 
levels  of  creation  we  seem  to  feel  more  sensibly  than  else- 
wliere  the  fresh  intervention  of  a  creating  Intelligence ; 
and  our  conviction  of  His  activity  is  strengthened  when 
we  observe  the  interdependence  and  harmony  of  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole,  in  which  each  part  is  necessary,  in 
which  nothing  is  really  out  of  place,  and  between  the 
several  elements  of  which  new  relations  are  continually 
coming  to  light,  as  if  to  justify  His  foresight  and  to  enhance 
our   estimate    of  His   inexhaustible  resources. ^      "Those 

^  Bossuet,  CEuv.  i.  79.  Si  nous  etions  tous  seuls  intelligents  dans  le  monde, 
nous  seuls  nous  vaudrions  niieux  avec  notre  intelligence  imparfaite,  que  toute 
la  reste,  qui  serait  tout-a-fait  brute  et  stupide,  et  on  ne  pourrait  compre- 
hendre  d'ou  viendrait  dans  ce  tout  qui  n'entend  pas  cette  partie  qui  enteud, 
I'intelligence  ne  pouvant  nfiitre  d'une  chose  brute  et  insensee. 

2  The  teleolo'jical  argument  for  the  existence  of  God,  which  sees  a  purpose 
in  the  forces  and  laws  of  the  natural  world,  and  in  the  events  of  human 
history,  has  been  chiefly  discredited  in  modern  times  by  the  popular  suppo- 
sition that  modern  attacks  upon  the  doctrine  of  tinal  causes  have  been  really 


56  God,  how  related  to  the  Cosmos.  [Lect. 

persons,"  says  Montesquieu,  "who  maintain  that  a  blind 
fate  has  produced  all  the  effects  we  see  in  the  world,  main- 
tain that  which  is  a  great  absurdity ;  for  what  absurdity 
can  1)6  greater  than  a  blind  fate  producing  intelligent 
beings  ?"^  How  do  you  know,  a  Bedouin  was  asked,  that 
there  is  a  God  ?  "  In  the  same  way,"  he  replied,  "  that  I 
know,  on  looking  at  the  sand,  when  a  man  or  a  beast  has 
crossed  the  desert — by  His  footprints  in  the  world  around 
me." 


III. 

Thus  does  the  common  sense  or  reason  of  man  lead  him 
up  to  recognizing  One  Supreme  Intelligence  as  at  least  the 
original  cause  of  all  that  he  is  and  sees  around  him.  But 
then  the  question  arises,  what  is  the  relation  that  actually 
subsists  between  this  Highest  Intelligence  and  the  uni- 
verse ?     To  this  question  there  are  two  leading  answers. 

successful.  For  a  partial  and  popular  consideration  of  some  recent  objec- 
tions to  Final  Causes,  urged  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  Mr.  Lewes,  and  others, 
cf.  M'Cosh,  Christianity  and  Positivism,  pp.  78-88.  Even  if  a  doctrine  of 
evolution  should  in  time  be  accepted  as  scientifically,  and  so  as  theologically 
certain,  such  a  doctrine  would  not  be  inconsistent  either  with  that  belief  in 
the  original  act  of  creation  which  is  essential  to  Theism,  or  Avith  "  the  recog- 
nition of  plan  and  purpose  in  the  number  and  variety  of  animated  beings." 
"  Evolution,"  from  a  Theistic  point  of  view,  is  merely  our  way  of  describing 
what  "we  can  observe  of  God's  continuous  action  upon  the  physical  world  ; 
and  because  the  phrase  seems  tacitly  or  poetically  to  invest  the  universe 
with  a  power  of  seK-unfolding,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  question  of  an 
Intelligent  Creator  and  Kuler  is  thereby  decided  in  the  negative  by  those 
who  employ  it. 

^  Esprit  des  Lois.      Cf.  Ps.  xiv.  1. 


II.]     God  banished  front  the  world  by  Deis^n.       57 

The  Deist  so  far  agrees  with  the  Christian,  as  to  admit 
that  God  is  related  to  the  world  as  its  Creator ;  and  that  He 
must  have  made  it  out  of  nothing  by  the  fiat  of  His  Will. 
But  with  this  admission — momentous  as  it  is — the  old 
Deism  practically  closes  its  account  of  God's  free  personal 
action  upon  His  work.  Since  the  creation,  God's  action  is 
represented  as  being  practically  superseded  by  a  system  of 
imchangeable  routine ;  and  this  routine  is  conceived  to  be 
so  strictly  invariable,  as  to  bind  the  liberty  of  the  pre- 
sumed Agent.  The  Deistic  theory  of  the  universe  might 
remind  us  of  the  relations  which,  at  least  until  some 
very  recent  events,  were  understood  to  exist  between  the 
Government  of  Egypt  and  the  Sublime  Porte.  There  was 
occasionally  a  formal  recognition  of  the  sovereign  power 
on  the  part  of  the  nominal  dependency,  but  Egypt  was 
governed  by  a  practically  independent  Viceroy ;  the  Suze- 
rain's name  was  mentioned  rarely,  or  only  in  a  formal 
way;  his  active  influence  would  have  been  at  once 
resented,  the  real  power  being  lodged  elsewhere.  Ac- 
cording to  the  old  Deism,  God  created  the  world ;  but  He 
cannot  be  supposed  ever  to  interfere  with  the  ordinary  laws 
of  its  government.  He  cannot  work  miracles  ;  'He  is,  in  no 
tangible  sense,  a  Providence.  He  is  well  out  of  the  way 
of  active  human  interests :  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  He 
can  hear  the  prayer  of  a  worm  writhing  on  one  of  His 
planets ;  that  the  happiness  or  misfortunes  of  a  larger  sort 
of  animalculse  can  give  Him  any  real  concern.  So  He  is 
throned  by  the   Deistic  \\Titer  in  magnificent   inactivity 


58  Deistic  apotheosis  of  Nature.  [Lect. 

at  a  very  remote  corner   of  the  universe,  while   a   new 
power  ha's  practically  taken  His  place. 

In  the  last  century,  at  the  first  great  outburst  of  Deistic 
thought,  Nature  practically  superseded  God.  Men  talked  and 
wrote  persistently  about  the  laws  of  Nature,  the  moods  of 
Nature,  the  religion  of  Nature :  Nature  was  so  vividly  and 
constantly  personified  in  conversation  and  in  literature, 
that  the  European  world  might  be  supposed  to  have  lighted 
upon  a  new  goddess,  charged,  in  a  very  special  sense,  with 
the  interests  of  humanity.  "We  live  in  a  more  positive 
and  realistic  age ;  and  where  our  fathers  talked  of  Nature, 
modern  Deism  names  "  laws."  What  is  lost  in  pictur- 
esqueness  is  gained  in  truth.  There  is  no  such  person  as 
Nature ;  but  there  are  observable  modes  of  the  Divine 
activity,  which  may  never  vary  within  the  experience  of  a 
race.  Order  is,  as  Christians  know,  a  characteristic  of  all 
God's  works ;  but  He,  the  Almighty,  is  so  little  enslaved 
by  the  rules  which  He  freely  observes,  that  moment  by 
moment  He  wills  the  very  order  that  seems  to  bind  His 
liberty.  Deism,  however,  really  means  by  "  laws  " — forces 
which  have  become  somehow  independent  of  God;  fatal 
forces,  which  defy  His  power  to  innovate  upon  their  resist- 
less play.  But  what  can  this  impotent  Deistic  God,  from 
whose  control  his  universe  has  so  escaped  as  to  constitute 
itself  a  self-governing  machine, — say  or  do  to  meet  the 
aspirations,  or  relieve  the  despondencies  of  the  human 
soul  ?  If  we  cannot  love  and  trust  volcanic  forces,  or  vital 
forces,  the  laws  of  growth  or  the  laws  of  decomposition; 


11.  ]  Deistic  experiments  of  Robespierre.  59 

can  we  love  and  trust  a  being  who  has  left  this  universe  to 
itself;  who  surveys  it,  if  he  does  survey  it,  in  the  cynicism 
of  an  unbroken  silence  from  a  very  distant  throne ;  to 
whom  its  vast  oceans  of  hope  and  fear,  and  struggle  and 
disappointment,  and  triumph  and  failure — all  the  mysteries 
of  its  moral  life,  are  of  no  more  concern  than  they  are  to  the 
rocks  and  seas  around  us  ?  No,  the  god  of  Deism  does  not 
quench  the  religious  thirst  of  the  soul.  The  soul  of  man 
seeks  the  Living  God,  not  a  deity  who  is  as  remote  from 
human  interests  as  was  the  Jupiter  of  expiring  Paganism. 

The  French  Eevolution  was  fertile  in  religious  or  irreli- 
gious experiments ;  and  as  it  endeavoured  to  satisfy  the 
human  soul  with  Atheism,  so  it  made  yet  more  strenuous 
effort  to  satisfy  it  with  Deism.  ^      Eobespierre  had  publicly 

^  So  Alison.  Compare  Pressensd,  TEglise  et  la  Eevolution,  p.  294.  La 
f^te  eut  lieu  le  20  prairial.  Rien  n'avait  dtdepargn^  pour  larendre  grandiose 
et  Dependant  elle  n'evita  pas  les  pudrilit^s  ridicules.  Eobespierre,  president 
de  la  Convention,  en  bel  habit  bleu,  avec  un  bouquet  de  fruits  et  d'^pis  dans  les 
mains,  prit  place  avec  tous  ses  coUfegues  sur  Fampliitlieatre  dlevd  au  milieu 
des  Tuileries.  Aprfes  un  pompeux  discours,  il  en  descendit  pour  incendier 
la  statue  de  I'Atheisme,  promptement  remplac^e  par  celle  de  la  Sagesse  qui 
parut  mallieureusement  tres  enf  um^e.  Des  Tuileries  la  Convention  se  rendit 
au  Champ  de  Mars,  entourde  et  comme  enlacde  d'un  ruban  tricolore,  qi;e 
portaient  des  enfants  orn^s  de  violettes,  des  adolescents  ceints  de  myrtes, 
des  hommes  d'age  mtir  couronn^s  de  feuilles  de  cheues  et  des  vieillards  pares 
de  pampre  et  d'olivier.  Un  char  bucolique  charg^  d'instruraents  aratoires 
suivait  la  Convention,  train^  par  les  inevitables  boeufs  k  cornes  dordes  et 
suivi  par  les  non  moins  inevitables  jeunes  filles  en  blanc.  Au  Champ  de 
Mars  la  Convention  se  pla^a  sur  une  montagne  artificielle,  monument  flatteur 
pour  les  deputes  de  la  majorite.  Le  president  perora,  les  jeunes  filles  chan- 
tbrent,  les  vieillards  donnferent  leur  benediction,  les  cnnons  tonnferent  et  tout 
se  termina  par  le  cri  de  vive  la  Repuhlique.  Ces  pompes  d'opera  comique, 
ces  symboles  ridicules  et  ces  rites  glaces  apprenaient  k  la  France  qu'il  est 
plus  facile  de  decreter  un  changement  de  religion  que  de  I'operer.  Jamais 
le  deisme  ne  fondera  un  culte  et  tout  ce  qu'il  essayera  dans  ce  genre  tombera 


6o     The  SouVs  thirst  unsatisfied  by  Deism.    [Lect. 

declared  that  Cliaumette  deserved  death  for  the  abomina- 
tions which  accompanied  the  Feast  of  Eeason  in  Notre 
Dame,  on  November  7,  1793  ;  and  he  took  a  leading  part 
in  the  Feast  of  the  Supreme  Being,  which  was  celebrated 
in  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries  and  in  the  Champ  de  Mars, 
on  June  9,  1794.  The  Convention  decreed  that  he  should 
discharge  the  duties  of  Supreme  Pontiff  on  the  occasion. 
The  Deism  of  Eobespierre  was  sufficiently  vivid  to  admit 
of  his  believing  that  God  does  rule  the  affairs  of  men ; 
he  maintained  with  particular  earnestness  that  God  hates 
kings  and  priests.  The  undeniable  eloquence  of  the  presi- 
dent of  the  Convention,  the  art  and  industry  of  the  painter 
David,  the  music,  the  costumes,  the  political  enthusiasm  at 
fever  height,  did  all  that  could  be  done  for  the  success  of 
the  festival.  But  you  cannot  lash  a  multitude  into  devo- 
tion to  a  remote  and  hypothetical  abstraction  by  any 
elaborate  display  of  ceremonial ;  and  the  real  deity  of  the 
occasion  w^as  Eobespierre.  As  he  marched  along,  over- 
shadowed with  his  plumes,  and  adorned  with  his  tricolor 
scarf,  while  the  air  resounded  with  cries  of  "  Vive  Eobe- 
spierre," his  countenance,  says  the  historian,  was  radiant 
with  joy.  "  See  how  they  applaud  him,"  said  his  colleagues. 
"  He  would  become  a  god :  he  is  no  longer  the  High  Priest 
of  the  Supreme  Being."  History  does  not  ascribe  to  this 
attempt  any  special  efficacy  in  reviving  among  the  French 

sous  la  risee  publique.  La  fete  fut  trouvee  bien  longne,  surtout  pour  ceux 
quirritait  le  role  preponderant  de  Robespierre.  On  raconte  qu'un  repre- 
Bentant  moins  patient  que  ses  collegues  lui  dit  en  termes  d'une  trivialite 
energique:   "  Tu  commences  k  nous  ennuyer  avec  ton  Etre  Supreme." 


11. ]       God  buried  m  the  world  by  Pantheism.       6i 

people  a  sense  of  tlieir  duties  towards  their  forgotten 
Maker.  The  most  tangible  result  of  the  day  was  the 
decree  proposed  by  Couthon,  for  increasing  the  powers  of 
the  Eevolutionary  Tribunal. 

To  the  question,  What  is  the  relation  between  the 
universe  and  the  Supreme  Intelligence  ?  another  and  a  very 
different  answer  has  been  given.  If  Deism  practically 
banishes  God  from  the  world,  Pantheism,  at  least,  sees 
what  it  calls  God  everywhere,  and  in  everything.  ^  The 
Pantheistic  god  is  the  common  principle  which  not  only  is 
held  to  constitute  the  unity  of,  but  which  is,  the  universe. 
According  to  Benedict  Spinoza,-  God  is  the  one  eternal  sub- 
stance, wdiich  makes  its  appearance  in  the  twofold  realm 
of  thought  and  of  matter.  Out  of  it  all  individual  forms 
of  existence  are  constantly  emerging,  and  like  waves  upon 
the  ocean,  they  are  as  constantly  sinking  back  into,  and 
being  absorbed  by  it,  as  the  common  stream  of  universal 
life.  God  alone  is,  says  Fichte,  and  apart  from  Him  is 
nothing,^ — a  great  truth  in  one  sense,  and  a  great  falsehood 
in  another.  Hegel  teaches  that  the  Absolute  is  the  universal 
reason ;  which,  after  having  buried  and  lost  itself  in 
nature,  recovers  itself  in  man,  in  the  shape  of  self-conscious 
thought.  Man's  thought  of  God,  therefore,  is  the  true  God, 
the  only  existing  God.     God  exists  only  in  human  thought ; 

1  Wegscheitler,  Inst.  p.  240.  Pantheismus — ea  sententia  qua  natixram 
divinam  mundo  supponant  et  Deum  ac  mundum  unum  idemque  esse 
fitatuunt. 

2  Cf.  Tractat.  de  Deo.  c.  2.  Suppl.  ad.  opp.  Amst.  1SG2.  For  his  Theory 
of  Substance,  cf.  Ethic,  p.  1,  Def.  5. 

3  Fichte,  Von  Sel.  Leben,  §  143. 


62         Secret  of  the  strength  of  Paiiiheism.      [Lect. 


human  thought  is  the  reason  of  nature  arriving  at  self- 
consciousness.  Man  thinks  of  God,  and,  in  man's  thinking, 
God  exists ;  He  has  no  independent  or  personal  existence.^ 
The  great  attraction  and  strength  of  Pantheism  lies  in 
the  satisfaction  which  it  professes  to  offer  to  one  very  deep 
and  legitimate  aspiration ;  it  endeavours  to  assure  man  of 
his  real  union  with  the  source  of  his  own  and  of  the 
universal  life.  It  is  this  profound  idea,  this  most  fascinat- 
ing allurement,  that  can  alone  explain  the  empire,  which, 
in  various  ages  and  under  various  forms.  Pantheism  has 
wielded  in  human  history.  It  inspires  Eleatic  and  Indian 
philosophies;  it  is  the  animating  principle  of  such  w^or- 
ship  of  the  generative  and  life-sustaining  powers  in  nature, 
as  was,  for  instance,  that  of  the  Phoenician  Baalim.  Since 
Lessing,  Spinoza  has  almost  reigned  in  certain  districts  of 
cultivated  Europe,  and  Germany  is  by  no  means  the  only 
liome  of  the  thought  of  Schelling  and  of  Hegel.  In  its 
later  forms  Pantheism  is,  speaking  historically,  a  reaction 
from  and  a  protest  against  the  older  Eationalistic  Deism. 
It  often  represents  a  noble  plea  that  God  shall  not  be 
banished  by  modern  thought  from  all  real  contact  with 
humanity :  nay,  it  would  fain  essay  to  do  in  its  way  what 
the  Divine  Incarnation  has  actually  done ;  it  would  make 
men  partakers  of  the  Divine  Nature.  And  this,  its  religious 
aim,  is  beyond  question  a  main  secret  of  its  power. 

^  Hegel's  fundamental  error  consists  in  his  identification  of  the  "abstract 
thought "  of  man  with  the  "  Absolute  Thought."  Fichte  (Zeitschrift  fur 
Philosophic,  Ed.  17,  §  292)  says  that  this  is  "  nicht  niir  hochst  willkurlich 
und  grundlos,  sondern  eine  contradictio  in  adjecto."  Qu.  by  Hettinger  ;  cf. 
Hegel,  Phil,  der  Eel.  §§  207,  261,  2G3  ;  Encycl.  §  56. 


11. ]       Does  it  satisfy  the  thirst  of  the  Sotilf        63 

Yet  does  the  Pantlieistic  deity  afford  any  real  satisfac- 
tion to  the  needs  of  the  soul  of  man  ?  Can  he  be  the  object 
of  any  serious  religious  effort  whatever  ?  What  is  there  in 
him  to  which  the  life  of  religion  can  possibly  attach  itself  ? 
He  is  not  a  person :  for  Pantheism  necessarily  denies  the 
existence  of  personality.  He  is  not  a  cause :  for  Pan- 
theism cannot  tolerate  any  doctrine  of  causation.  He  is 
not  even,  as  the  Absolute  Substance,  in  anywise  distinct 
from  phenomena ;  for,  while  it  is  loyal  to  its  central  position, 
l^antheism  cannot  afford  to  admit  the  correctness  of  such 
a  distinction.  What  is  he  then  ?  He  is  only  a  fine  name  for 
the  universe.  He  has  no  existence  apart  from  it :  he  is  the 
universal  life,  of  which  you  and  I  are  transient  manifesta- 
tions or  forms.  You  may  indeed  encounter  him  draped 
and  veiled  in  a  phraseology  so  reverent  and  tender,  that  it 
might  seem  to  have  been  borrowed  from  the  inmost  shrines 
of  Christian  mysticism ;  but  wdien  you  force  yourself  to 
look  at  the  hard  reality  beneath,  you  find  that  it  is  practi- 
cally identical  with  that  presented  Ijy  Materialism.  ^  If 
God  be  in  reality  only  the  spirit  or  life  of  the  universe, 
how  can  He  provoke  the  yearnings  of  the  soul,  or  how 
satisfy  its  aspirations  ?  How  can  He  be  the  object,  whether 
of  religious  homage,  or  of  religious  trust  ?  How  can  we 
A'ield  love,  obedience,  worship  to  a  mere  torrent  of  existence 
that  flows  onwards  inexorably  beneath  our  feet;  we,  the 
ripples,  who   do  but  rise  upon  its   surface  to  sink  away 

^  Strauss,  Gl.  1,  §  517.  Seine  Existenz  als  wesen  ist  unser  denken  von 
ihm  ;  aber  seine  reale  Existenz  ist  die  Natur,  zu  welcher  das  einzelne  Denk- 
ende  als  Moment  uehort. 


64    ■  Pantheis77t^  the  sanction  of  moj^al  evil.    [Lect. 

after  our  little  moment  of  undulation  ?  Or  how  can  a 
sensible  and  modest  man  love,  trust,  worsliij),  his  own  self- 
consciousness,  under  the  idea  that  in  each  reflecting  mind 
God  has  become  conscious  of  Himself  ?  Nay,  if  religion 
has  anything  to  do  with  reverence  for  goodness  and  with 
abhorrence  of  moral  evil,  if  it  is  not  a  sentiment  that  has 
been  rendered  by  modern  speculation  wholly  independent 
of  moral  truth,  how  can  we  worship  either  an  inner  self 
into  which,  as  we  must  each  of  us  know,  evil  penetrates  so 
constantly  and  so  pervadingly;  or  an  universal  life  of 
which  in  its  highest,  that  is  its  human,  manifestation,  evil 
is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  more  frequently  an  accomjjaniment 
than  good  ?  How,  I  say,  can  such  an  absolute  principle  be 
the  object  of  religion,  if  its  activity  be  manifested  not  less 
truly  in  murder  and  lust  than  in  heroism  and  unselfish- 
ness ;  if  the  darkest  forms  of  evil  stand  to  it  in  a  relation 
just  as  necessary  as  do  the  highest  forms  of  good ;  if  by 
it,  in  a  word,  all  moral  distinctions  whatever  are  really 
annihilated  ? 

Between  Pantheism  and  an  earnest  hatred  of  moral  evil 
there  is  accordingly  a  necessary  opposition,  and  this  reason 
alone  establishes  a  permanent  divorce  between  it  and  any 
true  effort  at  communion  with  the  All-Pure,  such  as  all 
that  is  best  in  us  enjoins.  But  further,  that  which  in  a 
Christian,  as  in  any  earnest  Theist,  makes  Pantheism  im- 
possible, is  the  first  article  of  his  creed :  "  I  believe  in  God 
the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth."  As  the 
act  of  creation  was  not  witnessed,  so  it  cannot  be  demon- 


11.  ]     Relapse  of  Pantheism  into  Materialism.       65 

strated.  "  By  faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds  were  made 
by  the  word  of  God."  ^  Creation  interposes  an  immeasur- 
able chasm  between  the  Creator  and  the  creature ;  be- 
tween that  Pure  and  Awfid.  Life  Which  is  indebted  to  none 
else  either  for  existence  or  support,  and  this  life  of  depend- 
ence, weakness,  corruption.  And  belief  in  creation  is  a 
necessary   outwork   of  any   true   theism   whatever:   deny 

''■  Heb.  xi.  3.  That  God  created  the  universe  is  the  first  truth  which  Scrip- 
ture teaches  us  about  Him,  Gen.  i.  1.  Cf.  Job  xxxviii.  4-7  ;  Ps.  xxxiii.  6-9, 
thus  reveahng  His  majestic  beauty;  Ps,  xix.  1-7  ;  xcvii.  1-6  ;  cxix.  64.  The 
Jews  knew  that  this  creation  involved  not  merely  the  bringing  order  and 
life,  e^  aixopcpov  vXrjs,  Wisd.  xi.  17,  but  also  originally  the  calling  this  form- 
less material  itself  into  being,  e^  ovk  6vt(jjv,  2  Mac.  vii.  28.  In  the  New 
Testament,  creation  is  generally  referred  to  as  furnishing  arguments  for 
moral  truths  or  duties  ;  as  by  our  Lord,  Matt.  xix.  4-6,  for  its  witness  to  the 
indissolubility  of  the  marriage  tie  ;  and  by  S.  Paul,  as  yielding  proof  of  God's 
real  relation  to  the  world.  Acts  xvii.  24  ;  or  of  His  interest  in  the  whole 
human  family,  and  of  our  duty  of  seeking  Him,  ih.  26  ;  for  the 
refutation  of  a  false  dualistic  asceticism,  1  Tim.  iv.  3  ;  cf.  Ej^h.  iv.  6. 
That  He  has  created  all  things  and  for  Himself  is  His  title  to  praise  and 
adoration.  Rev.  iv.  11.  Although  the  New  Testament  does  not  in  express 
terms  speak  of  creation  out  of  nothing,  it  implies  this  truth.  S.  Paul's 
arguments  in  Acts  xvii.  24,  and  1  Tim.  iv.  3,  would  lose  their  force,  if  it 
were  true  that  God  was  not  the  maker  of  matter  as  well  as  the  artist  who 
gave  it  form,  while  the  doxology  of  Rev.  iv.  11  could  not  be  truthfully 
addi-essed  to  a  Being  who  had  not  created  matter,  or  who  had  formed  any- 
thing out  of  pre-existent  material  which  he  did  not  create.  The  d/xop4>os  vXrj 
of  S.  Justin  Martyr  (Apol.  i.  10),  and  even  the  vXtj  axpovos  of  Clement 
(Phot.  Bibl.  cod.  1C9)  is  not  necessarily  eternal;  the  creation  of  matter  out 
of  nothing,  and  of  the  world  out  of  matter,  were  distinct  events,  separated 
by  intervals  that  distance  all  human  thought.  Tertullian  pointed  out  that 
Hei-mogenes,  in  teaching  the  eternity  of  matter,  was  really  a  Ditheist  (Adv. 
Herm.  c.  4.)  The  general  teaching  of  the  ancient  church  is  exj)ressed  by 
S.  Augustine  (De  fid.  et  symb.  c.  2)  :  Credimus  omnia  Deum  fecisse  de 
nihilo,  quia,  etiamsi  de  aliqua  materia  factus  est  mundus,  eadem  ipsa  materia 
de  nihilo  facta  est,  ut  ordinatissimo  Dei  munere  primo  capacitas  formarum 
fieret,  ac  deinde  formarentur  qutecunque  formata  sunt.  Hoc  autem  diximus, 
ne  quis  existimet  contrarias  sibi  esse  Scripturarum  senteutias  :  quoniam  et 
omnia  Deum  fecisse  de  niliilo  scriptum  est,  et  mundum  esse  factum  de  in- 
formi  materia,. 


66  The  Creator  present  in  His  Works.     [Lect. 

creation  and  you  deny  God.  If  God  in  His  unfettered 
freedom  did  not  summon  into  existence  all  that  is,  if  the 
universe  escaped  from  Him  against  His  will,  He  is  not 
alone  the  Omnipotent :  if  anything  that  we  term  matter  or 
spirit  has  from  the  beginning  co-existed  side  by  side  with 
Him,  He  is  not  alone  the  Eternal.  ^  The  difficulty  is  not 
met  by  phrases  about  the  eternal  Idea  passing  into  reality ; 
since  it  wiU  be  asked  how  such  a  passage  could  have  been 
effected,  or  rather,  why  it  should  have  taken  place  at  all  ? 
A  creative  Will  having  no  limits  to  its  power,  is  at  least 
intelligible,  but  the  mind  refuses  to  dwell  seriously  on  such 
a  process  as  a  transmutation  of  thought  into  matter.  In 
its  attempt  to  explain  itself.  Pantheism  practically  sinks 
back  into  Materialism ;  it  has  no  exj^edients  equal  to  the 
task  of  saving  its  god  from  burial  beneath  the  materialistic 
chaos  of  matter  and  force. 

Will  it  be  said  that  to  believe  in  a  Creator-God  is  to 
close  the  eye  to  the  presence  of  God  in  creation  ?  But 
who  that  believes  in  the  Omnipresent  can  limit  His  pre- 
sence ?  Is  not  the  original  act  of  creation  a  warrant  for  the 
Creator's  continued  presence  with  and  action  upon  His 
work?-  The  Apostle  who  taught  the  Athenians  that  God 
made  the  world  and  all  things  therein,  taught  them  also,  and 
in  the  same  great  sermon,  that  "  He  is  not  far  from  every 

^  Cf.  S.  Aug.  Conf.  xii.  7.  Fecisti  ccelum  et  terrain  iion  de  Te,  nam 
esset  ffiqxiale  Unigenito  Tuo,  et  aliud  prseter  Te  non  erat,  unde  faceres, 
ideo  de  niliilo  fecisti  coelum  et  terram.  S.  Iren.  Haer.  ii.  10,  4.  Homines 
quidem  de  niliilo  non  possunt  aliquid  facere,  sed  de  materia,  subjacenti: 
Deus  autem  materiam  fabricationis  suae,  cum  ante  non  esset,  ipse  adinvenit. 

2  S.  John  V.  17. 


II.]      6^.  AtigiLstine  on  God  and  tJie  Universe.      67 

one  of  us,  for  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being."  ^  To  assert  God's  presence  in  His  works  is  one  thing ; 
to  identify  Him  with  them  is  another.  His  omnipresence 
is  a  necessary  attribute  of  His  Deity ;  while  if  He  could  be 
identified  with  nature  He  would  cease  to  be.  If  the  mystery 
of  life,  which  attests  God's  presence  in  the  natural  world, 
was  ever  felt  in  all  its  awe  and  its  beauty  by  any  human 
soul,  it  was  felt  by  the  great  Augustine.  Witness  the  often 
quoted  passage  of  the  Confessions  in  which  he  tells  us  why 
nature  was  in  his  eyes  so  beautiful,  by  telling  us  hoAV 
nature  had  led  him  up  to  God.  "  I  asked  the  etirth,  and 
it  said :  '  I  am  not  He ;'  and  all  that  is  upon  it  made  the 
same  confession.  I  asked  the  sea  and  the  depths,  and 
the  creeping  things  that  have  life,  and  they  answered : 
'  AVe  are  not  thy  God ;  look  thou  aboA^e  us.'  I  asked  the 
breezes  and  the  gales ;  and  the  whole  air,  with  its  inhabi- 
tants, said  to  me :  '  Anaximenes  is  in  error,  I  am  not  God.' 
I  asked  the  heaven,  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars :  '  We  too,' 
said  they,  '  are  not  the  God  Whom  thou  seekest.'  And  I 
said  to  all  the  creatures  that  surround  the  doors  of  my 
fleshly  senses,  '  Ye  have  said  to  me  of  my  God  that  ye 
are  not  He  ;  tell  me  somewhat  of  Him.'  And  Avith  a  great 
voice,  they  exclaimed  '  He  made  us.'  "=^ 

1  Acts  xvii.  27,  28. 

2  S.  Aug.  Conf.  X.  6.  Interrogavi  terram  et  dixit :  non  sum  ;  et  quse- 
cumque  in  eadem  sunt  idem  confessa  sunt.  Interrogavi  mare  et  abyssos  et 
reptilia  animarum  vivarum,  et  responderunt :  Non  sumus  Deus  tuus,  quaere 
super  nos.  Interrogavi  auras  flabiles,  et  inquit  universus  aer  cum  incolis 
suis  :  Fallitur  Anaximenes,  non  sum  Deus.  Interrogavi  coelum,  sol  em, 
lunam,  Stellas  :  Neque  nos  sumus  Deus  quera  quteris,  inquiunt.     Et  dixi 


68      God  more  than  the  Highest  Intelligence.  [Lect. 

IV. 

So  long  as  the  human  mind  only  conceives  of  God 
as  a  Supreme  Intelligence,  it  will  oscillate  hesitatingly 
between  these  two  errors ;  between  a  sterile  Deism  wdiich 
banishes  God  from  the  world,  and  a  reactionary  Pantheism 
which  buries  Him  in  it.  It  is  when  w^e  gain  a  height 
beyond,  and  observe  the  third  great  form  of  argument  wdth 
wdiich  man  clothes  and  fortifies  his  presentiment  of  God, 
that  we  are  saved  from  this  liability.  Here  a  view  of  God's 
Nature  opens  out  u^^on  us,  which  is  at  once  conservative 
of  His  moral  Purity  and  distinctness  from  created  life,  and 
which  also  does  justice  to  the  intimacy  of  His  contact  with 
the  world  and  with  humanity. 

The  philosopher  of  Konigsberg,  who  in  his  Critique  of 
Pure  Eeason  has  made  the  most  of  some  wxll-known  objec- 
tions against  those  arguments  for  God's  existence,  which  are 
drawn  from  the  existence  and  structure  of  the  universe,  ^ 
insists  with  great  force  upon  the  strength  of  the  inference 
by  which  the  human  conscience  ascends  to  the  recognition 
of  God.  If  Kant  is  a  sceptic  in  the  domain  of  speculative 
thought,  his  doubts  vanish  altogether  wdien,  entering  that 
of  the  practical  reason,  as  he  terms  it,  he  listens  to  the 
commands  of  moral  truth.  ^  This  practical  reason  is  whoUy 
independent  of  any  discovery  or  decision  external  to  itself: 

omnibus  iis  qiue  circumstant  fores  carnis  mese  :  Dixistis  mihi  de  Deo  meo 
quod  vos  non  estis,  dicite  mihi  de  illo  aliquid.  Et  exclamaverunt  voce 
magna  :   Ipse  fecit  nos. 

^  Luthardt,  Apologet.  Vortr.  L.  iii.     Scholten,  Phil,  in  Eel.,  p.  100. 

2  Ki-itik  d.  reineu  Vernunft,  Abt.  ii.  B.  2,  kap.  3,  §§  4,  5,  6. 


II.]  Inference  of  the  practical  reason.  69 

it  apprehends  the  good  as  such  without  waiting  for  the 
judgment  of  experience.  Its  commands  are  issued  without 
limit  or  reserve;  they  have  an  objective  certainty;  they 
"  judge  all  things,  while  they  themselves  are  judged  of  no 
man."  They  lead  us  to  recognize  as  necessary  truths,  first, 
the  freedom  of  man's  will ;  next,  a  future  life ;  thirdly,  the 
existence  of  God.  The  voice  of  the  practical  reason,  "  Thou 
oughtest,"  implies  "Thou  canst";  the  categorical  impera- 
tive is  meaningless  in  the  absence  of  moral  freedom.  Man 
is  free,  and  his  conscience  perpetually  affirms  that  he  must 
do  good  at  all  costs,  even  although  doing  good  should  not 
make  him  happy.  It  affirms  no  less  clearly  that  if  he 
is  really  virtuous  he  should  be  happy.  Yet,  in  the  experience 
of  life,  the  good  man  who  does  good  is  often  unhappy, 
while  vice  is  not  unfrequently  salaried  and  crowned  with 
rewards  that  are  denied  to  virtue.  The  sight  of  this  con- 
tradiction forces  the  conscience  to  infer  a  life  to  come,  and 
a  Moral  Being  Who,  in  His  justice,  will  re-establish  those 
relations  between  happiness  and  virtue  which  it  persistently 
recognizes  as  necessary.  Thus  the  practical  reason  reaches 
God,  not  by  a  demonstration  of  His  existence,  but  as  a 
postulate  of  its  own  activity.  Speculation  may  mislead, 
but  duty  is  a  certainty;  and  duty  is  no  arbitrary  creation 
either  of  our  reason,  or  of  our  self-interest;  it  is  not  an 
abstraction  which  rests  on  nothing  beyond  itself ;  it  is  out 
of  the  reach  of  merely  speculative  criticism,  yet  it  leads  us 
to  the  Master  of  the  moral  world.  Those  clear,  precise, 
categorical  orders  which  are  imposed  in  varying  degrees 


"JO       Conscience  not  a  prodiLct  of  ediication.    [Lect. 

of  urgency  upon  all  human  wills,  point  to  a  really  living 
Euler  of  men,  in  ^Miom  man  cannot  disbelieve  without  doing- 
violence  to  himself.  Certainly  Kant  would  have  had  little 
patience  with  the  theory  that  conscience  itself  is  only  a 
collection  of  prejudices  received  from  childhood,  and  incor- 
porated with  the  moral  life ;  that  it  is  simply  the  result  of 
early  training,  and  has  no  real  basis  in  the  soul.  For  this 
theory  confuses  the  furniture  of  the  conscience  with  the  con- 
science itself;  the  acquisitions  of  a  faculty  wdth  its  existence. 
It  might  be  contended  with  equal  justice  that  the  human 
mind  does  not  exist  because  it  is  developed  by  exercise,  and 
enlarged  by  information.^  Certainly  conscience  may  be 
enlightened  or  it  may  be  misinformed  by  education.  But  the 
original  faculty  which  perceives  the  existence  of  some  right 
and  of  some  ^^Tong,  whatever  may  be  apprehended  as  such, 
and  which  refers  actions  to  such  rioht  and  A\Tonq-;  the 
faculty  which  imder  all  circumstances  pronounces  in  favour 
of  truth,  and  justice,  and  self-sacrifice,  and  courage,  and 
purity,  wherever  these  can  be  found,  because  it  intuitively 
perceives  their  necessary  excellence  ; — this  faculty  demands 
God.  Conscience  is  unsatisfied,  according  to  Kant,  unless 
there  exists  some  Being  above  the  world.  Who  can  here- 
after reconcile  the  discrepancies  which  exist  between  virtue 
and  fortune  in  this  present  life,  in  His  quality  of  an  arbiter 
of  human  conduct.  Here  Atheism,  especially  in  its  Pos- 
itivist  guise,   pleads  the  disinterestedness  of  real  virtue, 

^  Kritik  der  Reinen  Vernunft,  pp.  462-491,  ed.  Rosenkranz.  Siimintt. 
Werke,  2'^'"  Theil.  These  criticisms  are  discussed  by  Kleutgen,  Theologie 
der  Vorzeit.     Bd.  ii.  p.  46,  sjj-     Philosophie  der  Vorzeit,  ii.  diss.  9,  1. 


11. ]  God  a  postidate  of  the  conscience.  71 

which  is  good  and  does  good  for  the  sake  of  goodness, 
seeking  no  reward,  and  daunted  by  no  misfortune.  ^  But 
when  Kant  maintains  that  tliere  must  be  a  moral  God,  he 
does  this  not  in  the  interests  of  a  mercenary  virtue,  but 
in  those  of  an  absolute  and  consummate  justice,  which  pro- 
claims in  every  human  conscience  the  necessity  of  establish- 
ing an  harmony  or  correspondence  between  the  conditions 
of  human  existence  on  the  one  hand,  and  man's  demerits 
or  deserts  on  the  other. 

Thus  it  is  that  conscience  demands  God;  and  the  atheistic 
whisper  in  the  fool's  heart  of  which  the  Psalmist  speaks, 
belongs  in  truth  to  moral  rather  than  to  intellectual  folly. 
It  is  ultimately  traceable  to  a  failure  to  perceive  and  feel 
the  mighty  and  abiding  contrast  which  exists  between 
moral  good  and  moral  evil,  and  the  necessary  bearing  of 
this  contrast  upon  the  ultimate  destinies  of  the  universe. 
In  a  good  man,  belief  in  God  results  from  belief  in  the 
invincibility  of  good ;  the  intensity  or  feebleness  of  a  man's 
belief  in  God  is  a  spiritual  thermometer,  whereby  the  tem- 
perature of  his  moral  being  may  be  pretty  accurately 
measured.  When  the  moral  sensibilities  are  weakened  or 
blunted  by  culpable  indulgence  until  known  sin  is  tolerable 
or  even  welcome,  then  the  intellect  is  always  open  to 
theories  which  represent  good  and  evil  as  alike  forms  of  the 
Universal  Life,  or  as  equally  fatal  results  of  that  "  unrea- 
soning and  irresistible  piece  of  machinery  which  we  name 

^  Cf.  too  Strauss  Glaubensl.  1,  393,  qu,  by  Luthardt,  Lcct,  III.,  whom 
I  here  follow. 


72     Conscience,  Jiozv  fai"  affected  by  the  Fall.  [Lect. 

the  Universe."  But  although  the  human  conscience  is  an 
earnest  theistic  apologist  in  exact  proportion  to  its  vitality, 
its  affirmation  of  God  should  not  be  divorced  from  the  in- 
tellectual inferences  which  the  universe  suggests  to  us. 
The  evidential  strength  of  Theism,  like  that  of  Christianity, 
lies  not  in  any  single  proof,  but  in  the  collective  force  of 
the  various  evidences  which  are  producible  in  its  favour;  and 
of  these,  the  cry  of  conscience,  if  the  strongest  practically, 
is,  after  all,  only  one.  ISTor  does  it  follow  that  because  con- 
science is  a  true  guide  towards  the  throne  of  a  Living  and  a 
Moral  God,  it  is  therefore  an  infallible  judge  in  reviewing 
all  that  He  may  reveal  to  us  about  Himself  or  the  laws  of 
His  government.  We  may  reasonably  accept  the  witness 
of  the  universal  conscience  of  good  men  in  favour  of  Theism, 
without  binding  ourselves  to  accept  all  that  has  been 
pleaded  by  individuals  in  the  name  of  conscience  against 
portions  of  the  Jewish  history,  for  example,  or  the  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement.  If  it  be  urged  from  another  side  that 
it  is  after  all  "  the  conscience  of  fallen  man  upon  which 
we  rely  for  this  great  affirmation  of  God,"  the  reply  is,  that 
the  Fall  cannot  have  destroyed  our  j^owers  of  apprehending 
truth,  or  it  would  have  destroyed  our  responsibility,  and 
that  it  is  not  the  weakness  which  the  Fall  has  wrouoht  in 
human  nature,  but  the  strength  which  still  survives  it, 
whereby  man  affirms  the  existence  of  a  Moral  God  and 
seeks  Him.  So  far  as  man  is  a  fallen  being,  no  doubt,  at  the 
approach  of  the  Lord  God,  he  "  hides  himself  amid  the  trees 
of  the  garden,"  to  the  end  of  time.     But  those  truth-seeking 


IL]  Feebleness  of  conscience  luithoitt  a  Revelation.    73 

elements  of  his  spiritual  nature  which,  as  the  Christian 
creed  teaches,  were  in  Paradise  invigorated  by  a  robe  of 
supernatural  grace,  afterwards  forfeited  by  the  sin  of  our 
first  parents,  are  throughout  heathendom  still  kindled  into 
activity  by  the  prevenient  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  breath- 
ing as  He  wills  across  the  deserts;  and  thus  fallen  man 
seeks  the  Lord,  if  haply  he  might  feel  after  Him  and  find 
Him,  though  He  be  not  far  from  every  one  of  us,  ^  instinc- 
tively assured,  as  all  good  men  must  be,  of  His  existence, 
and  hoping  that  He  may  be  fully  unveiled  at  last. 

Yet  the  feebleness  of  conscience  in  fallen  man  is  a  fact 
of  sisrnificance.  Althouo-h  conscience  seeks  in  God,  not 
merely,  as  does  intellect,  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  the 
universe,  but  a  Legislator  Who  has  given  and  A^Hio  will 
enforce  the  law  of  right  and  wrong  ^Titten  in  the  human 
heart,  conscience  is  nevertheless  in  the  mass  of  men,  if 
left  to  itself,  too  enfeebled  to  keep  a  Moral  God  clearly  in 
view,  even  when  it  has  caught  sight  of  Him.  It  requires 
an  aid  external  to  itself,  a  token  from  its  Object  that  it  is 
not  mistaken  about  Him.  It  requires  a  revelation.  With- 
out a  revelation,  historical  theism  is  either  the  fruitless 
speculation  of  a  few  isolated  thinkers,  or  the  underlying 
idea  of  a  popular  superstition  which  obscures  and  degrades 
it.  In  a  certain  true  sense  it  is  itself  a  revelation;  but  its 
utterances  require  a  countersign  in  the  world  without, 
which  may  make  it  certain  that  the  inner  legislator  is  also 
the  Elder  of  the  L^niverse.     Conscience  itself,  exactly  in  the 

^  Acts  xvii.  27. 


74    Identity  of  the  God  of  Conscience  aiid  the  [Lect. 

ratio  of  the  clearness  with  which  it  discerns  the  moral  na- 
ture of  God,  discerns  the  implied  necessity  of  a  revelation. 
It  is  sure  that  He  Who  is  Himself  just  and  merciful,  cannot 
leave  men  altogether  to  themselves:  that  the  All-Good  cannot 
permanently  disappoint  the  desires  and  powers  which  He 
has  Himself  implanted.  And  thus  the  antecedent  proba- 
bility of  a  revelation  is  to  a  good  man  not  less  than  over- 
whelming; and  Christianity  assures  us  that  his  conviction 
is  warranted  by  the  fact. 

The  substance  of  the  Christian  revelation  of  God  con- 
sists not  merely  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  together 
with  the  old  Hebrew  literature  on  which  He  sets  His  seal, 
and  the  apostolical  doctrine  which  He  warrants  by  anti- 
cipation, but  also  in  His  life.  His  life  was  an  unveiling 
of  God  to  the  eye  of  man's  sense,  that  the  eye  of  man's 
spirit  might  understand  Him.  Christ's  life,  not  less  than 
His  teaching,  confirms  the  highest  instincts  of  the  human 
conscience,  and  educates  them  up  to  a  point  which  of 
themselves  they  could  never  have  reached.  But  how  is 
man  enabled  to  identify  the  Author  of  this  law  within 
him,  perfectly  reflected,  as  it  is,  in  the  Christ,  with 
the  Author  of  the  law  of  the  universe  without  him  ? 
The  answer  is,  by  miracle.  Miracle  is  an  innovation  upon 
physical  law, — or  at  least  a  suspension  of  some  lower 
physical  law  by  the  intervention  of  a  higher  one, — in  the 
interests  of  moral  law.  The  historical  fact  that  Jesus 
Christ  rose  from  the  dead  identifies  the  Lord  of  physical 
life  and  death  with  the  Legislator  of  the  Sermon  on  the 


11. ]      God  of  Naticre  certificated  by  Miracle.         75 

]\Iouiit.  Miracle  is  tlie  certificate  of  identity  between  the 
Lord  of  N"ature  and  the  Lord  of  Conscience, — the  proof 
that  He  is  really  a  Moral  Being  Who  subordinates  physical 
to  moral  interests.  Miracle  is  the  meeting-point  between 
intellect  and  the  moral  sense,  because  it  announces  the 
answer  to  the  efforts  and  yearnings  alike  of  the  moral  sense 
and  the  intellect;  because  it  announces  revelation.  It 
may  be  asked  whether  miracle,  in  revealing  God,  is  not 
subversive  of  the  idea  of  God,  Whom  it  reveals.  Does  it 
not  postulate  in  Him  two  contradictory  wills,  the  one 
whereby  He  enacts  a  permanent  law,  the  other  whereby 
He  suspends  it?  And  is  not  this  irreconcileable  with  the 
highest  views  of  His  nature,  as  the  Immutable,  Who  is 
what  He  is  unchangeably,  because  what  He  is,  is  abso- 
lutely the  best?  No.  For  this  is  to  apply  to  the  Divine 
Mind  a  human  standard  of  measm^ement.  Succession  is  a 
law  of  human  thoughts;  because  the  mind  of  man  is  finite. 
If  I  resolve  to  spend  each  day  for  the  next  six  months  in  a 
given  way,  and  then,  three  months  hence,  determine  that  I 
will  spend  one  particular  day  very  differently,  I  am  without 
doubt  guilty  of  traversing  my  original  and  general  inten- 
tion by  a  second  and  particular  intention  which  contradicts 
it.  But  with  God,  no  such  self-contradiction  is  possible  ; 
because  in  the  Divine  Mind  there  is  no  succession,  whether 
of  ideas  or  resolves.  The  Eternal  Being  sees  the  end  in 
the  beginning;  He  sees  the  exception  together  with  the 
rule  so  simultaneously,  that  it  is  untrue  to  say  that  He 
anticipates  it.     It  is  a  simple,  indivisible  act  of  will,  where- 


76  Dignity  of  God  not  comp7'omised      [Lect. 

by  He  everlastingly  wills  the  rule  together  with  the  excep- 
tion— the  exception  with  the  rule.  With  Him  is  "  no 
variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning."  ^  The  idea  that 
God,  in  w^orking  a  miracle,  contradicts  His  own  earlier 
purpose  in  giving  to  the  physical  w^orld  unchangeable  laws, 
not  merely  betrays  a  conception  of  law  as  something 
independent  of  the  free  activity  of  God,  but  introduces  into 
our  conception  of  the  Divine  Mind  the  finite  and  human 
idea  of  succession  in  thought  and  will.  Whereas,  in  truth. 
He,  the  Infinite,  embraces,  by  one  single  act,  present,  past, 
and  future,  the  general  and  the  particular,  the  individual 
and  the  universal;  reaching,  as  the  Wise  Man  says,  "from 
one  end  to  another,  mightily,  and  smoothly  and  sw^eetly 
ordering  all  things."  ^ 

But  does  God  compromise  His  dignity  by  working  a 
miracle,  or  by  exerting  a  sjjecial  Providence  over  His 
works  ?  It  is  pleaded,  indeed,  that  He  must  do  so.  It  is 
said  to  be  inconceivable  that  the  Maker  and  Monarch  of 
all  these  suns  can  interest  Himself  in  the  concerns  of  one 
of  the  smallest  of  His  planets;  in  a  particular  race  of 
creatures  on  its  surface,  in  individual  members  of  that 
race,  in  you  and  me.  To  imagine  this,  we  are  told,  is 
only  to  indulge  human  self-love,  which  interprets  all 
things,  even  the  Deity  Himself,  by  the  promptings  of 
its  own  boundless  self-complacency. 

And  yet,  wdiat  kind  of  "  dignity  "  is  it  which  is  thus 
pleaded  in  order  to  depreciate  the  freedom,  energy,  and 

1  S.  James  i.  17.  2  wisd.  viii.  1. 


11.  ]      by  mii^acles  which  attest  His  morality.         'jj 

ubiquity  of  God's  Providential  Eule  ?  It  is  at  best  the 
dignity  of  an  oriental  despot;  lie  is  too  engrossed  in 
tlie  cares  of  personal  government,  or  in  tlie  pursuits  of 
personal  indulgence,  to  listen  to  the  voices  and  to  study 
the  wants  of  the  poor,  who  struggle  and  suffer  around 
the  walls  of  his  seraglio.  The  notion  that  a  really  great 
intelligence  will  concern  itself  only  and  exclusively  with 
broad  principles  and  general  interests,  to  the  neglect  of 
particulars  and  details,  is,  even  when  we  are  speaking  of 
human  minds,  a  mistaken  notion.  This  vulgar  contempt 
for  details  belongs  to  the  pretentious  imitation  rather  than 
to  the  reality  of  mental  power.  A  really  great  intelligence 
combines  the  observation  and  study  of  details  with  the  firm 
grasp  of  comprehensive  principles ;  and  in  this  power  of 
combining  things,  which  in  lower  minds  are  found  apart, 
lies  the  strength  and  secret  of  its  greatness.  Nor  is  this 
less,  rather  it  is  much  more  the  case,  with  the  Eternal  Mind. 
God  is  not  less  Divine  in  literally  numbering  the  sparrows 
that  fall  to  the  ground,  and  the  hairs  of  the  human  head, 
than  in  formulating  the  highest  laws  which  govern  either 
planetary  systems  or  spiritual  intelligences;  while  this 
comprehensive  and  penetrating  interest  and  action,  spending 
itself  upon  the  wdiole  outward  and  inward  life  of  His 
creatures,  is  the  symptom  and  expression  of  the  moral 
interest  which  the  reasonable  creation  commands  in  the 
heart  of  the  Creator. 

No ;  God's  greatness  is  not  enhanced  by  systems  which 
would  banish  Him  from  the  world,  or  condemn  Him  to 


78  God  revealed  to  the  soul  in  Christ.     [Lect. 

impotence.  The  miracles  of  Christianity  are  so  far  from 
compromising  its  Theism,  that  they  illustrate  and  secure  it. 
The  God  of  Christianity  is  no  mere  First  Cause,  or  Supreme 
Intelligence.  He  is  a  Moral  God.  If  He  is  Power  and 
Wisdom,  He  is  also  Sanctity,  Justice,  Providence,  Mercy, 
Love.  According  to  the  Gospel,  Love  is  His  Essence; 
and  love  is  interest  in,  and  self-sacrifice  for  that  which  is 
its  object.  It  is  such  a  God  as  this  alone  Who  can  be 
the  adequate  object  of  religion. 

Traceable  everywhere  in  human  history,  traceable 
especially  in  the  history  of  one  separated  and  chosen 
race,  the  interest  of  the  Perfect  Moral  Being  in  the  moral 
and  thinking  creatures  of  His  hand  culminates  at  Beth- 
lehem and  on  Calvary.  The  Incarnation  of  the  Eternal 
Son,  the  manifestation  of  the  Divine  life  of  Love,  and 
Justice,  and  Compassion,  and  Purity,  flashing  through  a 
veil  of  flesh,  and  leading  up  to  a  death  of  agony  and  shame, 
wdiich  alters  the  Avhole  existing  moral  relation  between 
earth  and  heaven ;  this  is  the  glorious  creed  which  rivets 
a  Christian's  conviction  of  the  moral  intensity  of  the  life  of 
God.  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only 
begotten  Son."  What  could  He  do  more  in  order  to  con- 
vince  us  that  He  is  not  merely  a  Force  or  an  Intelligence, 
but  a  Heart  ?  At  the  feet  of  Him  who  could  say,  "  He 
that  hath  seen  ^le  hath  seen  the  Father,"  we  understand, 
and  feed  upon  the  certainty,  that  God  is  moral  as  well  as 
intellectual  "  light,  and  that  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all." 
A^^ien  a  man's  hold  upon  this  creed  is  gone,  his  thought 


11. ]  Practical  considerations.  79 

falls  back,  at  best,  u^^on  the  more  rudimentary  and  less 
adequate  ideas  of  the  Godhead ;  the  darker  mysteries  of 
the  world's  history  present  themselves  with  more  painful 
force ;  and  the  mind  tends  inevitably,  in  the  last  resort, 
either  to  Deism  or  to  Pantheism ;  to  a  Deism  which  just 
permits  God  to  create,  and  then  dismisses  Him  from  His 
creation ;  or  to  a  Pantheism  which  identifies  Him  with  all 
the  moral  evil  in  the  universe,  and  ends  by  j)ropagating 
the  worship  of  new  Baals  and  Ashteroths. 

A  few  words  in  conclusion. 

God  being  really  alive,  His  existence  is  a  fact  with  which 
no  other  fact  that  the  human  mind  can  come  to  recognize 
will  possibly  compare.  jSTothing  among  created  things  that 
can  engage  and  stimulate  thought,  nothing  that  can  warm 
and  expand  affection,  nothing  that  can  invigorate  will  and 
purpose,  ought,  in  the  judgment  of  any  thinking  human 
being,  to  compete  with  the  Eternal  God.  Our  reasonable 
duty  tow^ards  God  is  "  to  believe  in  Him,  to  fear  Him,  and 
to  love  Him,  with  all  the  heart,  with  all  the  mind,  with  all 
the  soul,  and  with  all  the  strength."  And  yet  that  unbegun, 
unending,  self-existent  Life;  that  boundless  Intelligence 
administering  a  boundless  Power  ;  that  long  array  of  moral 
Attributes  which  win  our  love  while  they  must  also  move 
our  reverence  and  fear ;  what  is  He,  our  God,  to  us  ?  Do  we 
thirst  for  God  ?  As  the  days,  and  months,  and  years  pass, 
do  we  ever  look  out  of  and  beyond  ourselves  upon  that  vast 
ocean  of  Uncreated  Life  Wliich  encircles  us.  Which  pene- 
trates our  inmost  selves  ?  Do  we  ever  think  steadily,  so  as  to 


8o  Practical  considerations.  [Lect.  II. 

dwell  with  a  real  intellectual  interest  upon  Him  Who  is  the 
first  and  highest  of  truths,  to  Whose  free  bounty  we  our- 
selves owe  the  gift  of  existence,  and  to  Whom  we  must 
one  day  account  for  our  use  of  it  ?  Do  we  ever  sincerely 
desire  to  love  Him,  and  to  live  for  Him  ?  Or  are  we  con- 
stantly hurrying  along  our  solitary  path  from  one  vanish- 
ing shape  towards  another,  while  we  neglect  the  Alone 
Unchangeable  ?  Be  sure  that,  if  we  w^ill,  in  God  revealed 
in  Christ,  the  soul  may  slake  the  thirst  of  the  ages ;  and 
the  dreariest,  and  darkest,  and  most  restless  existence  may 
find  illumination  and  peace.  "  This  God  is  our  God  for 
ever  and  ever:  He  will  be  our  guide  unto  death,  and 
beyond  it."  To  each  one  of  us,  now.  He  is,  if  w^e  will;  if 
we  will,  He  will  be,  for  ever,  to  each  the  Eternal  Truth, 
wherein  thought  can  never  find  its  limit;  the  Uncreated 
Beauty,  "most  Ancient,  yet  always  Fair,"  wdiereof  affec- 
tion can  never  tire;  the  Perfect  Eule,  existing  eternally  in 
the  Life  of  the  Necessary  Moral  Being,  w^hereunto  each 
created  will  may  perpetually  conform  itself,  yet  never  ex- 
haust its  task.  Without  this  Awful  and  Blessed  Being, 
man  has  no  adequate  object,  even  during  these  days  of  his 
brief  earthly  existence;  his  thought,  his  affection,  his  pur- 
pose spring  up  and  are  exercised  only  that  they  may 
presently  waste  and  die.  With  God,  the  human  soul  not 
merely  interprets  the  secret  of  the  universe;  it  compre- 
hends, and  is  at  peace  with,  itself.  For  God  is  the  satis- 
faction of  its  thirst; — He  is  the  object  of  Eeligion. 


LECTURE  III. 

Cfjtrtr  Suntrag  in  Hent 
THE  SUBJECT  OF  EELIGIOX— THE  SOUL. 

Ps.  viii.  4. 
WTiat  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him  ? 

~Q  ELIGION,  we  liave  seen,  is  not  a  sentiment,  or  an  idea, 
-*-^  or  even  a  code  of  moral  practice.  It  involves  the 
establishment  and  maintenance  of  a  real  bond  between  God 
on  the  one  hand  and  man  on  the  other.  To  the  perfectness 
of  this  bond,  feelinj?,  thought,  and  moral  earnestness  on  the 
part  of  man,  contribute  elements  which  are  indispensable 
to  it;  so  that  religion  in  itself,  although  beyond  each  of 
them,  is  dependent  upon  all.  Its  object,  as  we  have  also 
seen,  is  the  Personal  and  Moral  God.  In  a  mere  first  cause, 
in  a  mighty  force,  in  an  all-surveying  intelligence,  religion 
finds  nothing  to  which  it  can  attach  itself;  and  systems 
which,  like  Pantheism,  deny  the  personality  of  God,  or,  as 
did  the  old  Deism,  remove  Him  from  all  interest  in  and 
moral  action  upon  the  world,  are  thereby  destructive  of 
religion.      And   we   have   so   far   anticipated   the  matter 

G 


82  Vahie  of  the  tnquijy,  [Lect. 

before  us,  as  to  observe  that,  whatever  else  may  be  said  for 
or  against  it,  Christianity  satisfies  those  conditions  of  a  real 
religion,  in  which  these  theories  severally  fail;  and  that 
in  Christendom,  the  purity  and  spirituality  of  a  Personal 
God  on  the  one  hand,  and  His  ultimate  contact  with  us 
men  on  the  other,  by  means  of  a  Personal  Incarnation, 
are  fully  and  equally  recognized.  But  this  brings  us  face 
to  face  with  a  question  of  scarcely  inferior  importance, 
at  least  from  our  human  and  practical  point  of  view. 
Eeligion  being  a  real  relation  between  man  and  God,  it 
is  natural  and  inevitable  to  pass  from  considering  one 
of  its  terms  to  the  consideration  of  the  other.  If  God 
be  the  object,  what  is  the  subject  of  religion?  What  is 
this  created  being  who  can  thus  enter  into  relations  with 
the  high  majesty  of  heaven?  or,  as  the  Psalmist  puts  it 
at  once  more  reverently  and  more  truthfully,  "  What  is 
man,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him?"  What  is  it  in  man 
which  makes  him  capable  of  this  exceptional  relation  to 
God,  as  implied  in  his  capacity  for  religion  ? 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  treat  this  inquiry  on  which  we 
are  embarking  as  so  entirely  speculative  that  it  can  secure 
or  fortify  no  practical  results.  It  is  easy,  but  unwise,  in 
days  like  ours  to  ignore  the  great  questions  which  open  be- 
neath our  feet  as  well  as  above  our  heads,  under  the  joretence 
of  being  practical  men  who  have  neither  time  nor  inclination 
for  theory.  No  doubt,  it  is  better  to  be  a  good  man  than 
to  be  a  good  psychologist;  but  an  accurate  notion  of  the 
real  nature  of  the  soul  may  contribute  very  materially  in 


III.]  Why  is  man  capable  of  i^eligionf  83 

an  age  like  ours  to  personal  enthusiasm  for  practical  good- 
ness. How  are  you  to  decide  whether  man  is  capable  of 
religion,  or  hoAV  far  his  capacity  extends,  until  you  know 
what,  in  his  inmost,  deepest  being,  man  really  is  ?  In  other 
words,  this  question  of  man's  capacity  for  religion  is  sub- 
stantially the  question  whether  man  be  not  merely  a  bodily 
organism,  but  also  and  especially  a  spiritual  personality. 

Certainly  Eevelation  has  familiarized  Christians  with  the 
angels,  as  supramundane  beings,  in  a  very  high  degree  cap- 
able of  religion.  But  religion,  as  it  comes  before  us  on  the 
surface  of  this  planet,  is  a  monopoly  of  man.  Among  the 
lower  creatures  we  find  nothing  like  it;  we  can  discover  no 
place  for  it.  Man  is  the  highest  being  of  which  these 
creatures  have  cognizance.  Often,  indeed,  may  we  discover 
in  their  attachment  to  ourselves,  in  their  fidelity,  in  their 
tenderness,  in  the  true  delicacy  of  the  attention  which 
they  shew  us,  much  that  rebukes  us  when  we  reflect  on  the 
poor  service  that  we  ourselves  pay  to  a  Higher  Master. 
But  having  no  unseen  world  open  to  them,  and  being,  as 
they  are,  incapable  of  any  properly  reflective  thought,  they 
are  also  incapable  of  religion,  of  any  consciously  personal 
relationship  to  the  Source  of  all  Life.  But  man  can  look 
above  and  beyond  this  world  of  sense;  he  can  enter  into 
real  communion  with  the  Monarch  of  both  worlds;  and  the 
secret  of  his  doing  this  lies  in  that  which,  by  virtue  of  God's 
bountiful  gift  and  appointment,  he  himself  is  as  distinct 
from  the  creatures  around  him. 


84  Extemial  aspects  of  man.  [Lect. 


What  is  man  ?  Wliat,  let  us  ask,  is  tliis  or  that  given 
man  of  our  acquaintance,  a  near  relation,  one  of  ourselves  ? 
In  the  distance,  or  at  first  sight,  a  single  human  being  is 
what  the  world  chiefly  associates  with  him  ;  he  is  so  much 
property,  so  much  professional  skill,  so  much  political 
influence,  so  much  social  power,  so  much  literary  reputation, 
so  much  practical  capacity  for  public  affairs.  Upon  these 
things  the  public  eye  is  wont  to  rest  chiefly,  if  not  exclu- 
sively; these  things  are  labelled  with  this  or  that  great 
name  wdien  it  is  repeated  in  conversation  or  in  the  news- 
papers. But  they  are  only  the  accidents  of  any  human 
life.  They  are  external  to  it.  They  tell  us  nothing  about 
it,  nothing  at  least  that  a  true  appreciation  of  human 
greatness  would  most  care  to  know.  When  do  we  see  the 
man  himself  ?  We  stand  face  to  face  with  him ;  we  listen 
to  a  voice  ;  we  note  the  peculiarities  of  a  manner ;  we  study 
the  ever- varying  lines  of  a  human  countenance ;  but  we 
are  still  outside  the  real  man.  His  voice,  his  manner,  his 
expression,  may  tell  us  something  about  him ;  it  may  be  a 
great  deal ;  but  they  are  not  himself.  We  get  nearer  his 
real  self,  when  we  can  observe  and  compare  and  take  to 
pieces  what  he  says  and  does ;  in  his  speech  and  his  action, 
he  reveals  at  least  some  portion  of  his  character.  But  that 
which  speaks  and  acts  is  beneath  speech  and  action ;  it  is 
always  and  necessarily  invisible.     The  knife  of  no  anato- 


III.]  Mail  himself  a  person.  85 

mist,  however  delicately  wielded,  can  detect  it  in  the  folds 
of  any  human  brain  ;  no  psychologist  can  draw  it  out  into 
the  light  by  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  any  human  thought. 
Underlying  all  the  outward  decorations  of  man's  life ; 
underlying  the  human  face,  and  form,  and  speech,  and 
action,  although  thrilling  through  them  as  if  threatening 
ever  and  anon  to  become  visible  ;  underlying  all  that  is 
most  private  and  subtle  even  in  secret  thought,  is  that 
around  which  all  else  is  gathered,  and  without  which  all 
else  would  be  stripped  of  its  significance,  without  which  it 
would  never  have  been  or  would  cease  to  be. 

What  is  man  ?  He  is,  in  the  root  and  seat  of  his  being, 
a  person.  He  is  that  wdiich  each  of  us  means  when 
he  says,  "  I."  Let  us  turn  to  look  at  this  question  from 
within,  rather  than  from  without;  for  after  all,  it  is 
within  ourselves  that  we  can,  each  for  himself,  only 
and  really  grapple  with  it.  What  do  we  mean,  each 
of  us,  by  "  I."  We  mean,  first  of  all,  something  distinct, 
utterly,  profoundly  distinct,  from  all  that  is  not  "I";  some- 
thing which  is  conscious,  as  nothing  else  is  concious,  of  this 
deep  distinctness.  I  think,  and  I  know  that  it  is  only  I 
w^ho  think ;  I  think  about  myself,  and  I  know  that  it  is 
myself  only  upon  w^hich  I  only  am  thinking ;  no  other  self 
commingles  with  this  consciousness,  or  I  should  not  be 
myself;  I  am  thus  conscious  of  my  own  identity,  and  of 
my  radical  separateness  from  all  besides.  Nay,  more,  I 
can  trace  and  assert  this  identity  of  myself  with  myself, 
this  separateness  of  myself  from  all  that  is  not  myself,  for 
a  long  term  of  past  years.     When  the  outward  cu-cum- 


86  The  sense  of  personality.  [Lect. 

stances  of  my  life  were  far  otlier  than  they  are  now  ;  when 
my  bodily  mien  was  so  different  that  none  could  recognize 
in  it  the  myself  of  to-day ;  when  the  inner  companions  of 
my  secret  being  were  not  as  they  have  been  since,  so  that 
I  had  other  thoughts,  other  feelings,  other  resolves  than 
now ;  yet  still  underlying  these  differences  there  was,  deep 
down  at  bottom,  the  same  self,  thinking,  feeling,  resolving 
then,  even  as  it  resolves,  and  feels,  and  thinks  now.  And  of 
no  one  fact  am  I  more  certain,  or  so  certain,  as  of  this  ; — 
that  this  self  of  the  present  is  the  self  of  thirty  or  forty 
years  ago ;  that  it  was  then  as  it  is  now,  that  it  is  now 
as  it  was  then,  a  thing  distinct  from  all  else  in  the 
universe ;  and  a  thing  of  which,  among  creatures,  I  alone 
have  actual  cognizance.  And  as  I  am  certain  that  it  is 
separate  from  all  besides,  and  that,  as  long  as  my  memory 
will  serve  me,  it  has  never  been  otherwise  ;  so  I  feel  at  this 
moment,  as  I  always  have  felt,  that  I  possess  it ;  that  its 
thoughts  are  my  thoughts  ;  that  its  will  is  my  will ;  that  this 
thought  and  will  are  not  powers  which  come  in  upon  me 
like  a  flood  and  possess  me,  but  that  they  are  strictly  forms 
of  my  own  activity.  If  I  think,  I  choose  to  think ;  if  I  will, 
it  is  I,  and  no  other  being  in  the  universe,  who  does  will ; 
my  will  is  the  exercise  of  a  freedom,  unshared  by  any 
partner  of  my  life ;  and,  if  I  choose,  indestructible.  ^ 

^  See  Psychologie,  by  Ainedee  Jacques,  in  the  Manuel  de  Philosopliie, 
Hachette,  1867.      In  Is.  xxvi.  9,  the  Ego  tj{<  is  clearly  distinguished  both 

from  the  '•t'^ai  and  the  Tl^"! ;  in  Prov.  xxxiii.  15,  and  Eccles.  vii.  25,  it  is 

distinguished  from  the  i^p  of  the  Speaker.     In  Scripture  vphawirov  (2  Cor. 

i.  11)  refers  to  external  manifestation  of  the  person,  and  vTroaracns  (Heb.  i. 


III.]        The  lozuer  animals  do  not  possess  it.  ^j 

Such,  or,  at  least,  something  of  this  kind,  is  the  sense  of 
personality  as  we,  each  one  of  us,  experience  it.  As  long 
as  Ave  can  remember,  it  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  all  that 
we  have  felt,  thought,  and  done ;  it  has  penetrated  every 
movement  of  our  minds  and  hearts  ;  it  has  welded  the 
many  elements  of  our  lives,  outward  and  inward,  moral 
and  intellectual,  spiritual  and  even  bodily,  into  a  con- 
sistent whole.  "When  it  is  felt,  our  inmost  being  is  felt ; 
we  can  get  no  deeper  than  that  reflective  thought,  than 
that  conscious  will.  Here  we  touch,  so  far  as  we  can 
touch,  personal  spirit ;  and  it  is  because  man  is  a  personal 
spirit,  or,  as  Scripture  terms  it,  a  being  made  in  the  image 
of  God,  that  he  is  master  of  the  world  around  him.  ^  The 
mere  animal  is  not  thus  conscious  of,  and  capable  of  reflect- 
ing, on  his  own  existence.  He  lives  and  feels ;  he  carries 
instinct  forward,  it  may  be,  to  the  very  confines  of  reason. 
But  he  does  not  comprehend  his  life ;  he  does  not  reflect 
that  it  is  he  who  lives ;  he  is  not  conscious  of  remember- 
ing a  line  of  personal  existence,  unshared  by  any  other 
being,  and  threading  a  series  of  years  and  a  long  train  of 
divergent  circumstances.     He  does  not  anticipate  a  future. 

3,  xi.  1)  to  the  substance  that  underlies  the  appearance.  There  is  no  word 
in  Scripture  to  express  "person"  in  the  sense  of  a  self-conscious,  self  deter- 
mining being.  Del.  Bibl.  Psychologic,  vi.  1.  Worter's  art.  Seele  in  Wetzer 
and  Wette  ;  Diet.  Encycl. 

^  On  the  Likeness  of  God  in  man  see  Delitzsch,  Biblische  Psychologic,  ii., 
§  2.  The  Divine  Image  consists  in  man's  self-consciousness  and  moral  free- 
dom, TO  voepov  /cat  avre^ovcnop.  Man's  dominion  over  the  earthly  world  is 
*'  an  effluence  of  the  Divine  likeness,  and  not  the  Divine  likeness  itself."  By 
means  of  the  Resurrection  even  man's  body  attains  Tr]v  eiKova  tou  eirovpaviov 
(1  Cor.  XV.  49),  in  that  it  is  transfigured  into  the  image  of  the  God-man. 
See  the  whole  of  thi.s  interesting  section. 


88  Personality  not  merged  in  species.      [Lect. 

Neither  is  lie  free  or  deliberate  in  his  exercise  of  will :  his 
will  is  only  impulsive  desire  or  passion,  unregulated  by 
intelligence ;  it  is  not  his  instrument ;  it  is  his  mas'ber. 
Being  thus  the  slave  of  nature  around  him  and  of  his  own 
nature,  of  his  own  instincts,  and  of  the  force  of  circi;jn- 
stance,  he  never  can  project  himself  beyond  nature,  and 
so  rise  above  it,  and  take  the  measure  of  it  and  of  his  own 
relation  towards  it.  He  is  thus  passive  when  face  to  face 
with  his  nature,  he  is  thus  entirely  under  its  control, 
because  he  altogether  belongs  to  it ;  because  in  him  there  is 
nothing  which  comes  from  a  higher  world,  and  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  world  of  sense.  ^  Accordingly  the  single 
animal  is  only  a  specimen  of  his  kind,  the  individual  exists 
only  in  the  species :  but  man,  besides  belonging  on  his 
animal  side  to  an  animal  species,  yet  knows  himself  to  be, 
in  his  individual  capacity,  a  solitary  essence,  personal  and 
indivisible.  With  man,  the  animal  species,  the  lower 
nature  which  he  shares  with  his  kind,  is  subordinate  to  the 
individual,  because  in  man  that  which  constitutes  the 
individual,  his  inmost  being,  belongs  to  a  separate  and  a 
higher  order  of  existence.  ^ 

^  Wiirter,  art.  Seele,  ubi.  sup. 

^  It  were  to  be  wished,  observes  Delitzsch,  that  personality  and  individu- 
ality were  less  frequently  confused  in  common  language  than  they  are. 
Personality  is  common  to  all  men  as  such  :  by  it  men  are  raised  above  plants 
and  beasts.  Between  the  "  thought,"  feeling,  instinct  of  the  brute,  and  the 
inner  life  of  man,  who  is  conscious  of  himself,  and  can  in  thought  project 
himself  beyond  himself,  there  is  an  impassable  gulf.  Individuality  only 
marks  off  the  single  specimen  of  the  kind,  whether  it  be  man  or  beast ;  it 
implies  nothing  as  to  his  subjective  life.  Although  this  obvious  distinction 
is  not  formally  expressed  in  Scripture,  it  is  observable  that  in  the  narrative 
of  the   creation   p^  is  used  only  of  plants  and  beasts,  not  of  man ;   as  if 


III.]  Doctrine  of '' internal  facts  !^  89 

This  consciousness  of  personal  life  is  not  to  be  referred 
to  anything  in  man's  physical  constitution.  Thought 
after  all  is  not  merely  phosphorus ;  and  psychology  is  not 
correctly  described  as  a  branch  of  physiology.  The  great 
Scottish  thinkers  of  half  a  century  ago  laid  much  stress 
upon  the  doctrine  of  what  they  called  "  internal  facts." 
By  an  internal  fact  they  did  not  mean  a  fact  removed  from 
the  cognizance  of  the  five  senses ;  because  there  are  many 
purely  physiological  facts  which  might  be  defined  in  this 
way, — as,  for  example,  valvular  action  in  the  circulation  of 
the  blood.  They  meant  an  act  of  which  the  personal 
consciousness  alone  takes  cognizance.  If  you  lift  a  heavy 
weight,  so  far  as  the  visible  muscular  exertion  of  the  arm 
goes,  that  is  an  external  fact;  but  the  cause  of  this 
external  fact  is  an  internal  fact,  a  determination  of  your 
will — that  is,  of  yourself;  and  of  this  cause  you  alone  are 
conscious.  How  your  will  acts  upon  your  muscles,  you 
cannot  say ;  but  this  at  least  you  do  know,  that  it  is  your 
will  which,  by  a  voluntary  self-determination,  caused  the 
movement  of  the  muscles  of  your  arm :  and  this  internal 
fact  is  just  as  certain  to  you  as  the  external  one.  Or 
suppose  that  you  feel  annoyance  at  some  action  of  a 
neighbour,  and  reflect  almost  immediately  that  this  feeling 
is  undeserved,  and  fall  back  upon  this  and  that  considera- 
tion in  order  to  set  it  aside,  and  succeed  in  doing  so. 
Here  you  have  three  distinct  internal  facts ;  the  original 

to  imply  that  man  is  more  than  an  individual  specimen  of  a  kind, — that  he 
is  a  person. — Bibl.  Psych,  iv.  1. 


90  Spirihiality  of  the  soul.  [Lect. 

feeling,  the  bringing  reason  to  bear  upon  tliat  feeling,  and 
the  altered  state  of  feeling  which  succeeds.  All  of  these 
are  strictly  internal,  strictly  peculiar  to  the  consciousness  ; 
yet  as  appreciable  by  observation,  and  as  immediately 
appreciable,  as  any  fact  of  physiology.  There  is  no 
necessity,  exclaims  the  eminent  thinker  who  suggests 
this  illustration,  for  losing  ourselves  "  in  metaphysical 
hypotheses,  in  order  to  demonstrate  the  spirituality  of 
the  soul,  and  Kant  was  right  in  throwing  these  old- 
fashioned  arguments  to  the  winds.  The  spirituality  of  the 
soul  is  a  fact ;  it  is  a  positive  fact ;  it  is  a  fact  just  as 
notorious  as  the  sunlight.  Men  are  still  inquiring,  and 
will  probably  inquire  while  time  shall  last,  what  matter  is. 
But  we  do  practically  know  what  spirit  is,  for  we  have 
each  one  of  us  a  sample  of  it  in  ourselves,  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  thinking,  feeling,  determining  subject  which  we 
name  '  self  "  ^ 

It  would  be  an  impertinence  to  say  that  the  spirituality 
of  the  human  soul  "  is  taught  in  Scripture,"  because  Holy 
Scripture  everywhere  presupposes  it,  and  is  unintelligible 
without  it.  But  a  question  may  be  raised  as  to  the  form 
in  which  it  is  taught  there.  Scripture  sometimes  appears 
to  exhibit  human  nature  as  composed  of  two  elements, 
sometimes  as  of  three.  Moses  represents  man  as  origina- 
ting from  "  the  combination  of  an  immediate  breathing  of 
God  with  an  earthly  body,"  -  and  Solomon  distinguishes 

1  Saisset,  L'ame  et  la  Vie,  pp.  16,  17,  18,  22. 

2  Gen.  ii.  7  ;  cf.  Del.  Bibl.  Psych,  ii.  §  4. 


III.]      Scriptural  analysis  of  man  s  nature.  91 

the  dust  wliicli  at  death  must  "  return  to  the  earth  as  it 
was  "  from  "  the  spirit "  that  "  shall  return  unto  God  who 
gave  it."i  After  a  like  manner  our  Lord  distinguishes 
the  true  life  or  soul  of  man^  from  his  animal  life,  and 
the  "  spirit,"  which  in  His  disciples  was  "  willing,"  from 
the  "  flesh  "  that  was  weak  \^  and  in  dying  He  resigns  His 
Human  Soul  to  the  Father,  with  the  words,  "  Into  Thy 
hands  I  commend  My  Spirit."  *  In  the  same  manner  S. 
Paul  bids  Christians  glorify  God  both  in  their  body  and 
in  their  spirits,  since  both  body  and  spirit  belong  to 
Him;  ^  and  S.  James  compares  faith  without  w^orks  to 
that  separation  between  the  body  and  the  spirit  which 
implies  the  death  of  the  body.^  In  these  passages,  man 
is  regarded  as  composed  of  a  body  and  of  a  single  super- 
sensuous  nature,  which  is  sometimes  called  life  or  soul,'' 
and  sometimes  spirit;  but  elsewhere,  this  immaterial  nature 
itself  is  subdivided  into  self-conscious,  self-determining 
spirit,  and  animal  life-power  or  soul.  Thus  S.  Paul  prays 
that  the  spirit,  and  soul,  and  body  of  the  Thessalonian 
Christians,  each  part  subsisting  in  its  perfect  integrity, 
may   be    preserved    blameless    until    our   Lord's   second 

^  Eccles.  xii.  7.  "  S.  Matt.  vi.  25,  ouxt  -17  ■^vx<]  TrXeiov  kari  ttjs  Tpo(prjS. 

3  S.  Matt.  xxvi.  41.  ^  S.  Luke  xxiii.  46. 

^  1  Cor.  vi.  20,  see  text,  ^  S.  James  ii.  26. 

^  "  According  to  the  usus  loquencU  of  all  the  books  of  the  Bible,  {^>2J  i^^XV^ 

frequently  denotes  the  entire  inward  nature  of  man."  This  is  true  even 
of  S.  Paul.  If  xf/vxrj  in  his  writings  means  nothing  more  than  "  vis  qua 
corpus  viget  et  movetur,"  he  is  at  issue  with  S.  Luke,  with  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  and  with  Eph.  vi.  6,  Col.  iii.  23,  Phil.  i.  27  ;  in  all  of  which 
passages  the  seat  of  moral  resolve  is  placed  in  the  ^f/vxv-  Cf .  Delitzsch,  Bibl. 
Psych,  iii.  §  9. 


92      Oneness  of  the  vital  principle  iji  maji.      [Lect. 

coming  ;^  and  the  word  of  God  is  described  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  as  having,  from  its  moral  power,  an  analytical 
efficacy  which  separates  as  clearly  between  the  spiritual  and 
psychical  elements  of  man's  immaterial  nature,  as  between 
the  life  of  sensation  and  the  life  of  motion  in  his  corporeal 
nature."  Still  it  cannot  be  concluded  from  these  two  pas- 
sages that  man  consists  of  three  essentially  distinct  elements. 
If  this  language  of  S.  Paul  obliges  us  to  see  in  soul  and 
spirit  something  more  than  two  distinct  relations  of  man's 
inward  nature,  it  does  not  imply  more  than  two  distinct 
departments  of  that  nature,  the  higher  region  of  self-con- 
scious spirit  and  self-determining  will,  which  belongs  to 
man  as  man;  and  the  lower  region  of  appetite,  perception, 
imagination,  memory,  which  in  the  main  is  common  to 
the  undying  soul  of  man  and  the  perishable  inmost  being 
of  the  brute.  Man's  soul  is  not  a  third  nature,  poised 
between  his  spirit  and  his  body ;  nor  yet  is  it  a  sublimate 
of  his  bodily  organization,  any  more  than  his  body  is  a 
precipitate  of  his  soul.  It  is  the  outer  clothing  of  the 
spirit,  one  with  it  in  essence,  yet  distinct  in  functions; 
the  centre  of  man's  life,  psychical  and  animal,  is  his 
spirit.  ^ 

But  whatever  Holy  Scripture  may  explicitly  say  about 

^  1  Thess.  V.  23,  oKoKk-qpov  vixQiv  to  irvevfia,  /cat  17  ^vxv,  xal  to  crui/xa. 

-  Heb.  iv.  12,  duKVov/Jievos  ax/"  /Ji.€pi(7/j.ov  \pvxris  re  Kal  irvevfiaTos,  apfiQiv  re 
/cat  jJLveKCiv. 

^  In  our  o-\\ai  day  Anton  Giinther  revived  the  psychological  duahsm  of 
Occam,  by  making  the  distinction  between  the  soul  and  sj^irit  in  man  an 
essential  distinction  ;  in  other  words,  by  representing  each  man  as  possessed 
of   two  souls,  one  the  seat  of  reason,   the  other  of  sensation  and  gro^vth. 


III.]      Oicr  Lord's  estimate  of  what  man  is.         93 

the  spiritual  personality  of  man  as  a  formal  doctrine,  it 
implies  much  more  by  its  constant  appeal  to  man's 
liiHier  nature.  From  first  to  last  it  treats  man  as  a  beino- 
who,  altliough  clothed  in  an  animal  form,  is  essentially  and 
in  himself  a  spirit.  It  surrounds  him  with  precepts  which 
a  self-determining  spirit  only  can  obey ;  with  examples,  of 
which  only  a  reflecting  sj)irit  can  enter  into  the  force  and 
drift ;  with  prayers,  aspirations,  modes  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing, that  have  no  meaning  for  a  being  who  is  not  exj^eri- 
mentally  conscious  of  his  spiritual  subsistence.  Especially 
is  this  observable  in  those  Divine  pages  which  form  the 
inmost  sanctuary  of  Holy  Scripture ;  in  the  Life  and  Words 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  As  human  forms  pass  before 
Him,  in  the  Gospel,  although  He  is  constantly  relieving 
human  want  and  pain,  it  is  plain  that  the  outward  man 
means  for  Him,  relatively,  almost  nothing,  and  that  His 
eye  rests  persistently,  exclusively,  upon  the  man  within. 
As  we  accompany  Him  in  that  brief  but  exhaustive  study 
of  humanity,  we  feel  before  the  centurion  or  Pilate  little  or 
nothing  of  the  maj  esty  of  the  Eoman  name.  Although  Christ 
appeared  when  the  Empire  of  the  C?esars  was  in  its  splendour, 
He  speaks  of  the  "  kings  of  the  Gentiles,"  in  a  phrase  of 
studied  vagueness  ;  as  if  to  suggest  the  utter  insignificance 
of  the  highest  political  interests  which  only  touch  man's 
outward  life,  when  they  are  contrasted  with  those  higher  in- 

That  this  theory  has  no  biblical  warrant  appears  to  have  been  satisfactorily 
shewn  by  Delitzsch  :  its  experimental  difficulties  are  obvious.  The  E'jo 
which  thinks,  reasons,  wills,  is,  we  all  of  us  know,  identical  with  the  Ego 
which  experiences  the  sensations  of  sight,  smell,  hearing,  touch. 


94    ^  personal  spirit  only  capable  of  religion.  [Lect. 

terests  of  the  human  spirit  which  He  had  come  to  promote. 
Even  the  greatness  and  authority  of  the  successors  of  Aaron 
disappears,  or  recedes  into  the  background,  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  this  exacting  estimate,  which  knows  no  respect  of 
persons ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  at  His  bidding,  a  few 
obscure  and  illiterate  Galilean  peasants  become  respectively 
a  S.  Peter,  a  S.  John,  a  S.  Mary  Magdalen — names  which 
of  themselves  recall  neither  political  weight  nor  intellectual 
prestige,  but  types  of  spiritual  character,  beautiful  and 
majestic,  upon  which  already  eighteen  centuries  of  pro- 
gressive civilization  have  been  forward  to  lavish  all  but 
the  best  of  their  reverence  and  their  love. 

It  is  indeed  as  personal  spirits,  tabernacling  in  bodily 
forms,  that  we  men  are  capable  of  religion.  Eesolve  man's 
higher  nature  into  physiological  sensation  with  Materialism, 
and  religion  becomes  an  absurdity.  As  spirits,  we  are 
linked  and  bound  to  the  Father  of  Spirits  ;  as  spirits,  we 
believe,  we  hope,  we  love ;  as  spirits,  we  enter  into  the  com- 
plex mystery  and  activities  of  prayer ;  as  sj)irits,  we  take 
in  each  other  that  deep  and  penetrating  interest  which 
pierces  beneath  the  outline  of  the  human  animal,  and  holds 
true  converse  with  the  supersensuous  being  within.  All 
that  weakens  or  lowers  our  consciousness  of  being  spirits, 
weakens  in  that  proportion  our  capacity  for  religion :  all 
that  enhances  that  consciousness,  as  surely  enlarges  it. 


III.]  Theory  of  the  sotiF s  pre-existence.  95 


II. 


Man,  then,  if  we  track  him  to  the  centre  of  his  being, 
is  a  spirit,  whatever  be  the  dignity  and  organic  indis- 
pensableness  of  his  outward  form.  Wliat  do  we  know  about 
the  origin  of  man's  spirit,  of  his  deepest  self  ?  We  know 
when  and  under  what  conditions  a  human  body  comes 
into  existence.  What  do  we  know  about  the  origin  of  a 
human  soul  ? 

If  we  take  account  of  the  ancient  and  of  the  Eastern 
world,  one  of  the  most  popular  answers  to  this  question 
will  be  found  in  the  theory  that  the  soul  exists  before  the 
body.  Sometimes  this  is  stated  without  an  attempt  at  closer 
definition ;  more  frequeiitly  it  takes  the  form  of  a  doctrine 
of  Metempsychosis.  According  to  this  doctrine  the  spiritual 
part  of  each  man's  being  is  as  a  forced  emigrant,  who  has 
previously  occupied  other  frames,  and  who  may  have  others 
to  inhabit  hereafter ;  although  man's  inextinguishable  hope 
suggests  that  an  escape  from  this  fatal  cycle  may  be  achieved 
by  pre-eminent  virtue,  which  will  at  length  secure  an  in- 
corporeal immortality  for  the  weary  wanderer.  ^ 

The  Western  and  less  systematized  form  of  the  doctrine 
is  due  to  Plato.  Plato,  who  did  so  much  in  the  way  of 
training  the  ancient  world  to  realize  the  greatness  and 
uniqueness  of  the  soul,  accounted  for  the  soul's  present 

^  For  a  recent  European  theory  of  a  curiously  Gnostic  complexion,  see 
"  Le  Lendemain  de  la  Mort,  ou  la  vie  future  selon  la  Science,"  par  Louis 
Figuier.     Paris,  1871. 


g6  Platonic  foi^m  of  the  theory.  [Lect. 

and,  as  he  deemed  it,  humiliating  relation  to  the  body,  by 
saying  that  the  soul  had  existed  previously  in  another 
state  of  being,  and  was  condemned  to  tenant  a  human 
frame  as  a  kind  of  punishment.  Plato  was  probably  less 
anxious  to  give  a  complete  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
soul,  than  to  explain  the  source  of  certain  ideas  which  he 
encountered  in  the  human  mind.  They  occupied  much 
of  his  attention,  and  he  desired  to  invest  them  with 
an  authority  that  might  place  them  beyond  the  reach  of 
popular  discussion.  To  Plato  it  seemed  that  these  ideas 
were  relics  of  a  higher  knowledge  enjoyed  by  the  soul  in 
some  earlier  stage  of  its  existence ;  he  could  account  for 
them  no  otherwise,  because  they  so  transcended  the  poor 
realities  of  man's  present  experience.  Thoughts  w^hicli 
appeared  to  result  from  scientific  speculation  were  in  truth 
only  a  form  of  memory — memory  of  some  bygone  existence, 
passed  in  an  ideal  world  from  wliich  the  soul  had  fallen  down 
into  the  sphere  of  sense  and  under  conditions  of  time.  ^ 

Plato's  speculation  about  the  soul  w^as  of  deeper  and 
more  permanent  interest  to  humanity  at  large,  than  the 
particular  theory  which  led  him  to  adopt  it.  It  naturally 
found  its  way,  in  company  with  his  other  guesses,  to  Alex- 
andria. It  w^as  adopted  by  Neo-Platonist  thinkers,  and 
even  in  the  Jewish  schools ;  it  was  taught  by  Philo,  as 
well  as  by  Plotinus ;  it  was  filtered  through  Essenism  into 
the  religious  philosophy  of  the  Talmud  and  the  Cabbala ;  ^ 

^  nf\\uv  r\  fJidOrjcns  ovk  &\Xo  tl  ^  dvcifivrjcris  Tvyxdvei  odcra.      Cf.  Plat.  Phaed., 

E.  73-77,  246. 

2  Delitzsch  quotes  Joel,  Religions  philosophie  der  Sohar,  pp.  107-109. 


III.]    Pre-existence  of  the  sold  not  Scripticral.      97 

it  entered  into  more  than  one  type  of  Gnosticism ;  it  appears 
among  the  other  eccentricities  of  the  eccentric  Origen; 
it  forms  a  link  between  the  philosophical  bishop 
of  Cp'ene,  Synesius,  and  the  outer  world  of  Pagan 
thought.  But  it  was  stoutly  opposed  by  the  immense 
majority  of  Christian  teachers/  and  was  finally  condemned 
by  the  collective  Church,  as  an  untenable  error.  ^  For  it 
never  had  any  basis  in  Holy  Scripture;  not  even  in  those 
v/ritings  which  are  historically  connected  with  Alexandrian 
thought,  or  which  have  been  supposed,  on  strictly  internal 
grounds,  to  have  an  Alexandrian  colouring.^  To  suppose 
that  it  underlies  the  doctrine  of  an  original  or  birth-sin,  as 
taught  in  the  New  Testament,  is  to  forget  that  the  great 
teacher  of  that  doctrine  expressly  states  that  the  conse- 
quences of  the  first  sin  devolve  upon  those  who  have 
not  sinned  after  the  similitude  of  Adam's  transgression.* 

1  Even  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  6  Geos  r;,uas  eTvoiy\cjiv  ov  irpdovTas'  ^XRV^ 
yap  /cat  eldevai  rifias  oirov  rjfJLev  el  irpo  rji-iev.  Qu.  by  Klee,  Doginatik.  p. 
433,  from  Strom,  viii. ;  Mali,  torn.  vii.  p.  88.  S.  Peter  of  Alexandria 
characterises  it  as  a  shred  of  heathenism:  to  yap  fidO-qfia  tovto  rrjS  eWrjVLKr/'i 
ian  (piXocrocplas  Kevrjs  Kai  dWorpia^  oCicttjs  tCov  ev  'KpLcrrip  evaejSQs  6e\uvTwv 
'^?}v.     De  Anim.  frag.,  ih. 

2  In  the  Second  Council  of  Constantinople ;   Hefele,  Conciliengesch.  ii.  772. 

^  E.g.,  not  in  Wisd.  viii.  19,  20,  which  refers  to  an  altogether  excep- 
tional attribute  or  Personality.  The  Cabbalist  reference  to  Eccles.  xii.  7, 
and  Origen's  to  Eom.  ix.  11-13,  Luke  i.  47,  Jerem.  i.  5,  are  set  aside  on  ex- 
aoiiuing  the  passages.  Nor  are  such  arguments  as  Heb.  vii.  9  to  the  point. 
The  pre-existence  of  our  Lord's  Divine  Person,  as  taught  in  S.  John  and 
S.  Paul,  would  be  relevant,  if  those  Apostles  had  taught  the  pre-existence 
of  aijy  one  else,  and  if,  in  His  case,  this  pre-existence  did  not  clearly  attach 
to  a  representation  of  His  Personal  Dignity  as  su^jerhunian.  His  Humnn 
Soul  was,  hke  His  Body,  created  in  time,  and  then  hypostatically  united 
to  His  J 're-existent  Godhead. 

*  Pom.  V.  14,  CTTi  Tous  1X1)  afjiapTrjaavTa^  eirl  roj  o/wui-,'mr'.  r-qs  irapa^daeoss 
A5d//,. 

H 


98  A  pre-existent  soul  destroys  the  idea  o/^nan.  [Lect. 

The  conception  of  a  pre-existing  soul  is,  moreover,  broadly 
at  issue  with  the  Scri]3tural  account  of  man's  creation. 
Holy  Scripture  knows  of  no  creation  of  souls  prior  to 
the  creation  of  bodies;  the  creation  of  the  first  man 
comprises  the  simultaneous  creation  of  his  body  and  his 
soul.  Scripture  carries  us  up  to  no  moral  act  of  any 
soul  livino-  and  workinsj  before  the  creation  of  Adam's 
body;  it  traces  no  moral  circumstance  of  man's  present 
condition  higher  than  to  the  sin  of  Adam  in  Paradise. 
It  represents  marriage  as  honourable,  and  the  offspring 
of  marriage  as  a  blessing  from  the  Lord;  but  these 
representations  would  ill  consist  with  the  theory  which 
would  treat  the  human  body,  the  product  of  marriage, 
as  only  a  strange  house  of  detention,  wherein  the  un- 
willing soul  is  bound  during  a  lifetime,  far  from  its  true 
end  and  home.  In  short,  the  theory  of  the  soul's  pre- 
existence  is  broadly  at  issue  with  the  biblical  and  Christian 
doctrine  of  man,  which  makes  man  the  synthesis  of  body 
and  spirit ;  since,  according  to  that  theory,  man  existed  in 
his  completeness,  as  spirit,  before  he  was  sent  to  inhabit  a 
human  frame.  And  in  this  way  such  a  theory  cuts  up  by 
the  roots  that  profound  argument  for  the  future  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body,  which  is  suggested  by  the  fact  that  the 
body  is,  under  the  terms  of  man's  natural  constitution,  the 
soul's  one  adequate  organ  and  instrument ;  it  reduces  the 
body  to  the  rank  of  a  temporarily  indwelt  shell,  which 
might  be  escaped  from  with  advantage.  JSTor  is  the  ver- 
dict of  our  experience  at   issue   with  that   of  Christian 


III.]  Theory  of  the  souVs  descent  fro7it  parents.      99 

doctrine  in  this  particular.     If  we  have  all  of  ns  existed  in 
some  previous   state  of  being,  how  is  it  that   no  living 
memory  records  any  one  distinct  event  in  this  presumed 
phase  of  past  existence  ?     If  all  traces  of  this  supposed 
pre-existent  life  should  have  been  blotted  out  from  one 
memory,  or  from  the  majority  of  memories,  how  are  we 
to  explain   their   entire    disappearance    from   all  ?     Such 
universal  obKvion  of  a  great  past  is  in  fact  inexplicable, 
except  upon  the   extreme   and    violent   hypothesis   of  a 
miraculous   annihilation    of  memory   in   all   spirits   that 
have  been  heretofore  united  to  human  forms.     The  failure 
of  any  one  memory  to  recall  the  supposed  life  of  human 
souls  in  another  sphere  of  being,  is  as  unfavourable  to  the 
supposition  at  the  bar  of  reason,  as  its  other  demerits  must 
be  held  to  be  condemnatory  of  it  in  the  judgment  of  faith.  ^ 
But  if  man's  soul  cannot  be  supposed  to  exist,  as  an 
independent  being,  before  the  formation  of  his  body,  is 
it  a  part,  the  highest  part,  of  that  transmitted  inheritance 
of  life,  which  we  receive,  each  one  of  us,  from  our  earthly 
parents  ?     Among  the  ancients  this  position  was   main- 
tained  most  earnestly  by  TertuUian.^     He   had  already 
broken  aw^ay  from  the  Church,  and  he  wanted  a  strong 
psychological  tenet  capable  of  bearing  him  weU  out  in  the 

^  For  some  considerations  to  the  contrary,  see  Delitzsch,  Bibl.  Psych,  i. 
1,  who,  however,  insists  that  the  theory  in  question  has  no  Scriptural 
foundation. 

^  Cf.  Tertull.  de  Anima,  c.  19.  He  speaks  of  the  human  soul  "  velut 
sarculus  quidam  ex  matrice  Adam  in  propaginem  deducta;  "  and  argues  that 
in  the  process  of  natural  conception,  "  cum  omni  sua  paratura  pullulabit, 
tam  intellectu  quam  sensu."     Cf.  passim,  19-21,  25-27,  37. 


I  oo     Materialist  element  in  Tradiicianism.    [Lect. 

vigorous  resistance  wliicli,  in  his  Montauist  isolation,  lie 
offered  to  tlie  Marcionite  notion  of  a  pre-existing  soul.  Of 
course,  if  the  soul  was  generated  simultaneously  with  the 
body,  there  was  no  room  left  for  saying  that  it  had  ever 
existed  indej^endently ;  and  Tertullian  accordingly  pressed 
the  theory  of  Traducianism,  as  it  is  termed,  with  this  object, 
just  as  in  a  later  age  S.  Augustine  was  attracted  towards 
it,  for  another  reason  equally  independent  of  its  intrinsic 
merits.  ^  If  the  soul  was  transmitted  from  sire  to  son,  then 
it  was  easy  to  answer  the  Pelagian  question,  how  original 
sin  could  be  passed  on  together  with  it  from  Adam  to  his 
descendants.  But,  notwithstanding  this  powerful  motive 
for  accepting  it,  Augustine  saw  in  the  Traducianist  doctrine 
an  element  of  Materialism.^  The  ordinary  comparison  of 
lighting  one  lamp  from  the  flame  of  another,  was  too  gross 
an  image  accurately  to  adumbrate  the  act  of  giving  being 
to  an  immaterial  consciousness.  The  idea  of  the  soul 
which  Traducianism  suggests,  is  really  derived  from  animal 
analogies,  and  is  inapplicable  to  the  conception  of  a  purely 
spiritual  and  indivisible  essence.  The  difficulty  was  not 
removed  by  saying  that  the  body  was  not,  as  in  the  theory 

^  Beausobre  (Hist.  Crit.  de  Manichee,  Amst.,  1734)  goes  so  far  as  to 
attribute  a  strictly  Traducianist  doctrine  respecting  the  origin  of  the  soul 
to  S.  Augustine.  How  keenly  Augustine  felt  the  dangers  of  Materialism 
latent  in  this  theory  appears  from  such  j^assages  as  De  Gen.  ad  Litt.  lib.  x. 
cap.  i.  24-25.  His  general  language  is  studiously  undecided:  cf.  De  Animii 
et  ejus  orig.  i.  2;  iv.  2.  De  Lib.  Arbitr.  iii.  c.  21,  n.  59.  His  hesitation  is 
the  more  remarkable,  as  Pelagius  made  great  use  of  Creatianism  in  opposing 
the  Catholic  doctrine  of  original  sin.  See  his  Letter  to  S.  Jerome  ;  Ep.  166, 
c.  5,  9. 

2  Ep.  190,  ad  Opt.  c.  iv.  n.  13,  14,  15,  cm.  by  Worter. 


III.]  DifficiLliies  of  Traducianism.  loi 

of  Tertiillian,  the  real  generating  agent,  but  only  one  inter- 
mediate link  in  the  process  by  which  a  sonl  is  engendered 
by  parent  souls.  AVhen  Lactantius  asked  whether,  on  the 
Traducianist  h}^othesis,  tlie  soul  of  an  infant  was  to  be 
supposed  to  be  derived  from  the  father,  or  from  the  mother, 
or  from  both  parents  at  once,  he  asked  a  question  which 
was,  in  fact,  fatal  to  the  theory.^  It  was  inconceivable 
that  a  spirit,  personal  and  indivisible,  or  that  two  spirits, 
should  engender  another  spirit;  because  to  conceive  this 
was  to  attribute  a  purely  animal  process  of  propagation 
to  denizens  of  the  supersensuous  world."  It  has  been 
observed  that  children  generally  resemble  their  parents  in 
those  qualities  w^hich  Ave  describe  collectively  as  tempera- 

^  De  opificio  Dei,  c.  19.  Illud  quoque  venire  in  quKstionem  potest : 
utrumne  anima  ex  patre,  an  potius  ex  matre,  an  verb  ex  utroque  generetur. 
Sed  ego  id  meo  jure  ab  ancipiti  vindico.  Nihil  enim  ex  his  tribus  verum 
est,  quia  neque  ex  utroque  neque  ex  alterutro  seruntur  animse  corporibus. 
Corpus  enim  ex  corporibus  nasci  potest,  qu  -niam  confertur  aliquid  ex 
utroque ;  de  animis  anima  non  potest,  quia  ex  re  tenui  et  incomprehensiUli 
nihil  jJOtest  decederc. 

-  Delitzsch's  attack  upon  the  position  that  "  the  assumed  ability  of  spirit 
to  propagate  itself  is  contrary  to  the  dualism  of  nature  and  spirit,"  does 
not  appear  to  be  convincing.  The  Divine  Nature  being  the  Parent  of 
the  material  as  well  as  of  the  Spiritual  Universe,  those  Eternal  Truths 
internal  to  It,  which  are  shadowed  out  by  the  Names  of  Father,  and  Son, 
may  well  be  the  archetypes  of  material  rather  than  of  spiritual  facts  in  the 
universe.  The  Eternal  Spirit  Himself  is  "not  begotten  but  proceeding." 
The  Tl^Pin  of  Prov.  viii.  24,  is  to  be  referred  to  the  Son,  who  is  identical 
with  the  Wisdom  of  the  Proverbs.  The  application  of  the  metaphor  cf 
generation  and  birth  to  God's  natural  (Job  xxxviii.  28  ;  Ps.  xc.  2  ;  Deut. 
xxxii.  18)  and  supernatural  (1  Pet.  i.  3;  James  i.  18;  1  S.  John  iii.  9) 
creations  does  not  warrant  any  inference  as  to  a  possible  parental  relation- 
ship between  one  created  spirit  and  another.  The  angelic  reference  in  Gen. 
vi.  1-4  is,  to  say  the  least,  far  too  doubtful  to  be  made  the  basis  of  an  argu- 
ment.    But  cf .  Bibl.  Psych,  ii.  §  7,  sub  fin . 


I02  Theory  of  Creatianism.  [Lect. 

inent,  as  belonging  to  the  region  of  animal  life-power ;  but 
that  no  such  resemblance  can  be  calculated  on,  or,  where 
it  does  occur,  regarded  as  other  than  purely  accidental,  in 
respect  of  strictly  personal  qualities,  such  as  genius,  or 
will.  1  Traducianism  can  undoubtedly  point  to  great  names 
who  favour  it  in  ancient  and  modern  times ;  -  and  it  rests 
on  too  large  an  area  of  possibilities  to  be  rejected  with 
anything  like  peremptoriness.  But  the  general  sense  of 
the  Church  is  now,  as  it  has  been  in  past  times,  against 
it ;  it  does  not  seem  to  harmonize,  at  least  naturally  and 
easily,  with  the  fixed  outlines  of  a  consistently  spiritualist 
philosophy,  or,  notwithstanding  the  easy  explanation 
which  it  affords  of  a  doctrine  of  transmitted  sin,  to  make 
itself  really  at  home  with  such  an  estimate  of  man's 
spiritual  nature  as  is  implied  by  the  great  doctrines  of 
the  Christian  creed. 

The  other  and  more  generally  received  doctrine,  is  known 
as  Creatianism.  Each  soul  is  an  immediate  work  of  the 
Creator:  He  is  perpetually  creating  souls  out  of  nothing, 
and  infusing  them  into  bodies.^  He  creates  each  soul  at 
the  moment  when  the  body  which  is  destined  for  it  enters 

^  As  by  Wbrter,  ubi  supra. 

2  S.  Jerome,  indeed,  himself  an  earnest  Creatianist,  attributes  Tradu- 
cianism to  the  majority  of  Western  teachers  in  his  day  :  maxima  pars  occi- 
dentalium,  Ep.  78,  ad  Marcell ;  but  in  antiquity  Tertullian  stands  out  almost 
alone  in  his  unfaltering  decision.  Augustine  hesitates.  Of  moderja  Traduci- 
anists,  Delitzsch  among  Lutheran,  and  Klee  among  Roman  Catholic  writers, 
are  perhaps  the  greatest. 

^  Quotidit;  Deus  operatur  animas  et  in  corpora  mittit  nascentivim.  S. 
Jerome;  adv.  Paif.  Apol.  xvi.  1,  3.  Traducianism  he  thinks  absurd:  Satis 
ridendi  qui  putant  animas  cum  corporibus  seri  et  non  a  Deo,  sed  a  corporum 
parentibus  generari.     Qu.  by  Klee,  Dog-m. 


III.]    On  what  gi^oimds  it  is  excepted  against.      103 

really  and  j)roperly  on  its  inheritance  of  life.  ^  Creatianism 
recognizes  that  sense  of  the  immateriality  of  the  human 
spirit  which  expressed  itself  falsely  in  the  doctrine  of  a 
pre-existence,  and  which  is  so  seriously  compromised  by 
Traducianism.  Personal  spirit,  it  is  asserted  by  the 
Creatianist,  cannot  be  transmitted  from  one  created  life  to 
another,  like  animal  vitality.  Yet  Creatianism  recognizes 
the  truth  for  which  the  Traducianists  contended  against 
the  advocates  of  the  soul's  pre-existence,  when  it  maintains 
that  the  soul  and  body  are  strictly  contemporaneous  in 
their  origin,  and  that  they  have  profound  and  ineffaceable 
relations  to  each  other. 

When  it  is  pleaded  against  this  theory  of  the  origin  of 
the  soul  that  it  is  at  issue  with  the  Scriptural  representa- 
tion of  a  Sabbath  rest,  which  brought  God's  creative  activity 
to  a  close,  ^  it  is  sufficient  to  reply  that  such  an  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Mosaic  narrative  would  oblige  us  to  close  our  eyes 
to  the  proved  fact  of  a  later  origin  of  new  species  of  animals, 
besides  being  inconsistent  with  any  adequate  idea  of  God's 
providential  relation  to  the  world.  ^  When  it  is  said  that 
Creatianism,  if  true,  would  enslave  God,  by  bidding  Him 
give  existence  to  an  immortal  spirit  at  the  will  of  the 
adulterer,  and  in  defiance  of  His  own  law,  this  objection* 
does  indeed  reveal  the  peculiar  malignity  of  sins  against 

^  This  is  apparently  the  drift  of  Peter  Lombard's  often-quoted  maxim : 
Creando  infundit  aiiimas  Deus  et  infundendo  creat. 

-  As  by  Klee,  Dogmatik,  p.  431.  '"^  S.  John  v.  17. 

*  S.  Augustine  admits  to  S.  Jerome  that,  before  hearing  his  answer  to 
this  difiHcu^ty,  he  had  himself  solved  it  by  dwelhng  on  God's  power  and  will 


1 04   C7^eatianis77i  kozu  tanght  in  H.  Scripttwe.  [Lect. 

marriage;  but  it  is  merely  an  extreme  illustration  of  the 
general  truth,  that  man  can  only  sin  with  God's  assistance  ; 
that  all  sin  consists  in  the  employment  of  God's  bounty 
against  Himself.  When,  lastly,  it  is  urged  that  the  trans- 
mission of  original  sin  is  on  this  hypothesis  unintel- 
ligible, it  may  be  sufficient  to  say  that  original  sin,  being 
rather  of  the  nature  of  a  defect  than  of  a  positive  taint, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  how  created  souls 
did  not  receive  a  gift  which  had  been  withdrawn  from  the 
race  to  which  at  birth  they  became  united.  Upon  the 
whole,  the  Creatianist  theory  seems  better  to  fall  in  with 
the  scattered  hints  and  with  the  general  language  of 
Scripture.  It  is  apparently  more  in  harmony  with  the 
account  of  the  creation  of  man,  and  with  the  general 
representations  of  God's  creative  relationship  to  the  spirit 
of  man,  which  we  find  in  the  Old  Testament.  ^  Especially 
does  it  seem  to  be  borne  out  by  the  distinction  which  is 
drawn  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  between  the  "  fathers 
of  our  flesh  "  and  the  "  Eather  of  spirits."  ^  These  expres- 
sions discriminate  with  an  accuracy  from  which  there 
would  seem  to  be  no  escape  between  the  contribution 
made   to  the  composite  being   of  man  by   our   heavenly 

to  draw  gooJ  out  of  evil  in  all  His  earthly  providences.  The  giving  being  to 
a  soul,  capable  of  knowing  and  loving  its  Creator,  is  of  itseK  a  good,  how- 
ever it  may  be  occasioned.     Ep.  ad  Hieron.  166,  c.  5. 

1  Gen.  ii.  7;  Job  xxxiii.  4;  Ps.  cxix.  73;   Zech.  xii.  1. 

^  Heb.  xii.  9.  The  contrast,  Delitzsch  admits,  between  t'^j  aapKos  rj/xQu 
irarepes,  and  the  Divine  irar-qp  tGjv  ■n-vevp.dTWv,  is  physical  and  not  ethical. 
"  There  can  hardly,"  he  remarks,  "  be  a  more  classical  proof -text  for  Crea- 
tianism."  The  passages  which  imply  the  organic  oneness  and  responsibility 
of  the  race  of  Israel  do  not  set  this  aside  (vii.  5,  10.)     Cf.  Num.  xvi.  22. 


III.]      Bearing  of  these  theories  on  Religion.       105 

Parent  immediately,  and  that  which  He  bestows  throiigli 
created  channels  of  the  gift  of  life.  ^ 

This  question  of  the  soul's  origin  has  carried  us  into  a 
region  where  we  have  at  best  to  deal  with  high  proba- 
bilities ;  where  revelation  has  rather  hinted  at  the  truth 
than  unveiled  it,  and  where  reason  certainly  cannot  pre- 
tend to  dogmatize.  But  it  is  not  altogether  unfruitful 
to  look  at  this  side  of  our  subject,  even  where  certainty  is 
unattainable.  To  do  so  makes  us  all  the  more  thankful  for 
certainty,  when  we  know  that  it  is  within  our  reach.  After 
all,  the  difference  between  the  Creatianists  and  Traduci- 
anists  does  not  raise  the  question  whether  the  human  soul 
is  made  by  God,  but  only  the  question  whether  it  is 
immediately  created  by  Him.  All  that  we  are  and  have, 
except  the  evil  which  we  have  wrought,  and  which  clings 
to  us,  comes  from  the  One  Source  of  Life ;  but  if  religion 
finds  its  strength  in  this  general  conviction,  it  is  especially 
stimulated  by  the  belief  that  the  soul  is  God's  immediate 
handiwork.  The  belief  that  the  inmost  being  of  each  one 
of  us  is  created  as  immediately  by  God  as  was  that  of  our 
first  parent  Adam,  brings  each  of  us  into  a  felt  relationship 
with  God,  and  reminds  us  of  our  obligations  towards  Him, 
more  effectively  than  would  be  the  case  if  we  supposed 
ourselves  to  receive  spiritual  as  well  as  corporeal  life 
through  a  long  series  of  ancestors.  It  is  this  persuasion 
which  underlies  Bishop  Andrewes'  favourite  ejaculatory 

^  Cf.  Delitzsch's  Discussion  of  Heb.  xii.  9  against  Elvard's  theory  that 
cctp^  means  here  the  natviral  life  in  oi'position  to  the  regenerate  Ufe. 
Ilebraerbr.  in  loc. 


T  06  Destiny  of  the  soul.  [Lect. 

prayer  from  the  Psalter,  "  Despise  not  Thou  the  work  of 
Thine  own  Hands,"  It  is  not  in  the  anatomy  and  faculties 
of  the  body,  it  is  in  the  analysis  and  study  of  the  soul, 
that  the  greatness  of  human  life  is  best  realized,  and  our 
indebtedness  towards  its  Giver  most  deeply  felt.  This  re- 
flective reason ;  this  heart,  capable  of  a  boundless  expan- 
sion ;  this  will,  which  may  be  trained  to  a  freedom  and  an 
intensity  of  extraordinary  power; — of  what  are  these 
faculties  so  suggestive  as  of  the  knowledge,  love,  and 
service  due  to  that  Being  of  Beings  Wlio  is  the  End,  as 
He  is  the  Author,  of  this  centre  of  complex  and  self- 
controlling  life  ? 


III. 


Man,  then,  is  a  sj^irit ;  and,  as  it  would  seem,  he  is,  as 
such,  immediately  created  by  God.  The  gravest  question 
yet  remains :  Wliat  is  his  destiny  ?  Whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  importance  of  questions  bearing  on  the  soul's 
origin,  no  reflecting  man  will  deny  the  interest  of  all  that 
bears  upon  its  future.  It  is  true  that  even  this  question 
is  ostentatiously  set  aside  on  the  ground  of  its  being  un- 
practical to  discuss  it.  "  The  dead,"  it  is  argued,  "  do  not 
return  to  tell  us  their  experience.  What  then  can  be 
known  certainly  of  that  which  befalls  them  ?  We  may 
hope,  or  we  may  conjecture;  we  may  desire,  or  despair;  we 


III.]  Inevitableness  of  death.  107 

may  dogmatize  in  the  air,  and  make  creeds  of  our  aspira- 
tions ;  but  wonld  it  not  be  better  to  confine  ourselves  to 
subjects  that  are  well  witliin  the  range  of  our  experience, 
and  where  sure  results  are  attainable,  than  to  waste  time 
and  sympathy  upon  that  which  belongs  really  and  only  to 
the  realm  of  fancy  ?" 

This  way  of  treating  the  subject  is  possible  and  not  un- 
common among  young  men  and  women  in  good  health, 
who  have  never  known  a  heartache ;  and  in  the  pages  of 
clever  serials,  where  readers  are  carried  forward  almost 
unresistingly,  by  clear  type  and  well-turned  sentences,  over 
the  dreary  wastes  of  sceptical  thought.  But  the  question  of 
the  eternal  future  is  too  pressing  to  be  thus  left  at  a  dis- 
tance, permanently.  If  religion  has  many  enemies  in  the 
j)redominant  tendencies  of  the  modern  world,  she  certainly 
lias  steady  and  inalienable  allies  in  the  permanent  circum- 
stances of  human  nature. .  To  the  most  refined  and  cultured 
of  ourselves,  death  is  just  as  certain  a  contingency  as  it  was 
to  our  rudest  forefathers,  and  its  dread  solemnities  enter 
just  as  penetratingly  into  the  homes  of  rank  and  science, 
as  into  the  humblest  cottages  in  the  land.  Sooner  or  later 
it  comes  close  to  all  of  us,  and  the  mists  which  hide  its 
stern  realities  from  our  eyes  roll  away,  and  leave  us  face 
to  face  with  them. 

"  They  think  that  their  houses  shall  continue  for  ever : 
and  that  their  dwelling-places  shall  endure  from  one 
generation  to  another;  and  call  the  lands  after  their  own 
names. 


io8  Inevitableness  of  death.  [Lect. 

"  Nevertheless  man  will  not  abide  in  honour :  seeing 
that  he  may  be  compared  unto  the  beasts  that  perish ;  this 
is  the  way  of  them. 

"  They  lie  in  the  hell  like  sheep,  death  gnaweth  upon 
them,  and  the  righteous  shall  have  domination  over  them 
in  the  morning :  their  beauty  shall  consume  in  the 
sepulchre  out  of  their  dwelling. 

"  Be  not  thou  afraid,  though  one  be  made  rich :  or  if  the 
glory  of  his  house  be  increased ; 

"  For  he  shall  carry  nothing  away  with  him  when  he 
dieth :  neither  shall  his  pomp  follow  him. 

"  For  while  he  lived  he  counted  himself  an  happy  man : 
and  so  long  as  thou  doest  well  unto  thyself,  men  will  speak 
good  of  thee. 

"  He  shall  follow  the  generation  of  liis  fathers :  and 
shall  never  see  light. 

"  Man  being  in  honour  hath  no  understanding :  but  is 
compared  unto  the  beasts  that  perish."  ^ 

This  is  the  solemn  irony  of  life,  and  from  year  to  year 
we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  it.  Death  does  not 
move  us  much,  when  it  visits  those  whom  we  do  not 
know,  or  whom  we  know  only  slightly ;  when  it  only  meets 
us  as  it  wends  its  way  gloomily  through  the  crowded 
thoroughfare  towards  the  distant  cemetery,  or  as  it  catches 
our  eye  in  the  supplement  of  our  daily  newspaper.     It 

1  Psalm  xlix.  11,  12,  M,  16-20. 


III.]      Questions  raised  at  the  sight  of  death.       109 

does  not  touch  us  as  being  wliat  it  is,  so  long  as  it  only 
produces  social  changes  which  excite  our  interest,  while  it 
]:eeps  sufficiently  at  a  distance  not  to  wound  our  hearts. 
We  drape  it  in  phrases  which  treat  it  as  a  solemn  abstrac- 
tion. No  doubt  it  is  solemn;  but  so  is  the  war  lately 
raging  in  Paraguay,  or  a  Eussian  campaign  in  Central 
Asia.  We  sliould  speak  very  differently  of  a  revolutionary 
struggle  in  the  streets  of  London,  ujDon  the  issue  of  which 
it  was  clearly  understood  that  our  own  life  and  property 
might  immediately  depend.  But  we  find  that  at  last  death 
comes  home  to  us,  even  to  us,  in  all  the  closeness  of  its 
dreadful  embrace.  Not,  it  may  be,  this  time  to  ourselves  : 
that  were  perhaps  more  bearable.  The  one  human  being 
v/hom  we  have  loved  best  on  earth — the  parent,  the  husband, 
the  wife,  the  child — lies  before  us.  We  see  what  is  coming. 
It  is  very  gradual,  perhaps,  and  there  are  many  rallies  in 
which  vital  power  struggles  with  disease,  in  which  hope 
flickers  up  in  its  contest  with  the  presentiments  of  reason, 
only  to  die  back  into  a  deeper  despair.  It  is  very  gradual 
— a  slow  processional  movement  to  the  grave :  but  the  end 
comes  at  last.  At  last  a  day  comes  to  which  the  preceding 
days  are  as  if  they  had  not  been ;  a  day  comes  which  lives 
in  memory.  We  can  no  longer  reckon  on  hours  ;  we  dare 
not  be  away  even  for  a  few  minutes,  lest  we  should  be  too 
late.  A  change  has  taken  place,  wliicli  they  know  well 
who  are  familiar  with  death,  and  of  which  none  can  mistake 
the  import.  We  feel,  all  feel,  that  the  time  is  short,  and 
a  few  words  are  said  into  which  is  compressed  a  life — 


I  lo      Questions  raised  at  the  sight  of  death.    [Lect. 

its  most  sincere  thoiigiit  and  love — a  few  assurances, 
messages,  entreaties ;  no  more  is  possible.  Already,  one  by 
one,  the  vital  powers  take  their  leave :  first  speech,  then 
movement,  then  hearing,  then  even  eyesight.  Still  there 
is  breathing,  now  rapid  and  deep,  now  weaker  and  inter- 
mittent ;  and  then  there  comes  a  last  breath ;  and  we  wait ; 
and  there  is  none  after  it. 

It  lies  before  ns,  that  loved  form :  only  an  hour  ago  it 
spoke :  we  speak  to  it  now,  but  in  vain.  We  bend  over 
it  in  our  agony,  as  if  it  was  still  what  it  had  been ;  but  we 
know — what  would  we  not  give  to  escape  from  our  convic- 
tion ? — that  neither  thought  nor  feeling  tenants  it  now. 
And  the  question  must  rise  then,  if  it  never  rose  before,  with 
an  urgency  proportioned  to  the  grief  which  asks  it ; — Is  all 
really  over  ?  Has  the  real  being,  which  one  short  hour  ago 
thought  and  felt  so  keenly,  actually  and  for  ever  ceased 
to  be? 

Do  you  say  that  in  presence  of  that  passionate  agony 
it  is  folly  to  ask  for  a  decision  which  should  only  be 
dictated  by  the  coolest,  the  calmest,  the  most  unimjDas- 
sioned,  the  most  disinterested  science  ?  I  answer  that 
that  agony,  if  it  be  not  itself  an  argument,  is  well  fitted 
to  win  a  hearing  for  arguments  to  which,  under  ordinary 
circumstances,  our  materialistic  science  is  deaf.  Such 
a  condition  of  feeling  may  be  impatient  on  the  one 
hand  of  a  physiology  which  seeks  for  the  immaterial  spirit 
in  the  brain ;  as  it  cannot,  on  the  other,  enter  into  a  meta- 
physical   discussion   of    the   alleged    indestructibility    of 


III.]  ytLstice  demands  a  f utter e  state.  1 1 1 

uncompoimded  essences.  But  being  itself  pain,  mental 
pain,  one  of  the  great  chastening,  illnminating  powers  of  the 
moral  world,  it  is  at  least  in  a  mood  to  understand  a  moral 
argument.  And  the  moral  argument  for  our  immortality  is, 
after  all,  the  strongest  of  those  upon  which  reason  can  fall 
back.  It  is  no  fancy  which  insists  that  Eternal  Justice 
cannot  close  His  account  with  any  human  conscience  at  the 
moment  of  death;  that  there  must  be  an  after- world  in 
which  the  too  unequal  balance  of  suffering  and  happiness, 
of  good  and  evil  doing  during  life,  will  be  surely  rectified. 
We  must  do  stern  violence  to  the  best  and  deepest  instincts 
of  our  better  nature  before  the  voice  of  this  argument  can 
be  silenced.  It  is  a  moral  conviction  which  protests  against 
the  Materialistic  theory  that  the  soul  is  but  an  animated 
vapour  which  becomes  extinct  with  the  life  of  the  bodily 
frame.  It  equally  rejects  the  Pantheistic  dream,  that  what 
looks  like  a  separate  personality  ceases  when  we  cease  to 
breathe,  while  the  soul  sinks  back  into  the  vast  under- 
current of  boundless  life,  which  is  the  fabled  vital  force  of 
the  Pantheistic  universe.  If  morality  has  any  serious  basis 
in  the  nature  of  things,  if  it  be  not  a  dream  or  a  con- 
ventionalism, there  must  be  a  future  wherein  each  personal 
spirit  will  subsist  under  conditions  which  will  have  direct 
reference  to  its  moral  and  spiritual  attainments  here. 

For  if  one  thing  is  evident  to  a  man  who  takes  notes  of 
what  passes  within  him  with  the  lapse  of  time,  it  is  that 
the  inward  being  which  he  contemplates  as  "  self,"  is  con- 
tinually developing.     As  the  years  pass,  whether  for  good 


1 1 2  Immortality  Jiow  taught  in  H.  Scripture.  [Lect. 

or  evil,  this  immaterial,  thinking,  resolving  being  acquires 
accumulating  strength  and  intensity.  Long  after  the 
animal  life  of  man  has  reached  its  highest  point,  and  is 
fairly  on  the  decline,  the  spirit  feels  itself  sensibly  growing; 
growing  in  the  range  of  its  intellectual  grasp,  growing  in 
its  powder  of  will,  growing  in  its  sense  of  being  a  centre  of 
life,  unlike  any  of  the  forms  of  animal  or  vegetable  life 
around  it.  Is  it  possible  that  death  will  abruptly  put  an 
end  to  this  hitherto  uninterrupted  development  ?  Is  it 
possible  that  we  thus  continuously  expand  in  all  that 
constitutes  our  real  human  selves,  only  to  find  at  the  gate 
of  death  that  we  were  nothing  but  brutes  after  all,  although 
endovvxd  with  sensibilities  and  imaginations  just  keen 
enough  to  make  us  the  victims  of  an  immense  and  ex- 
ceptional delusion  ? 

It  is  often  remarked  that  the  Bible  nowhere  deals  with 
tlie  natural  immortality  of  the  human  soul  as  a  thesis  to 
be  proved.  ^  As  in  the  case  of  the  soul's  spirituality,  the 
Bible  scarcely  asserts,  but  it  everywhere  takes  the  truth 

^  It  is  not  meant  that  the  sonl  of  man  is  immortal  through  any  internal 
necessity,  such  as  might  he  held  to  belong  to  an  uncompounded  essence. 
In  this  sense  God  is  6  \x6vo%  'ix<^v  dOavaaiap  (1  Tim.  vi.  1 6).  In  all  creatures, 
indestructibility  is  a  gift.  It  is  a  gift  to  the  spirit,  as  di-tinct  from 
the  animal  life-power  of  man.  The  ancients,  Tatian  and  Justin  Martyr, 
who  protested  against  the  Greek  idea  of  a  necessary  immortahty  inherent 
in  the  soul,  did  not  deny  the  gift  of  immortality,  which  as  a  matter  of 
fact  the  Creator  had  bestowed.  Just  as  man  conceives  of  God,  so  he  con- 
ceives of  eternity,  and  longs  for  it.  His  longing  shows  that  he  is 
designed  from  eternity ;  it  is  otherwise  inexplicable.  "  God  has  placed 
eternity,    0?)])  iii  the  heart  of  man"   (Eccles.  iii.  21).     It  is  a  matter  of 

experience  ;  and  the  argumentum  ab  appetitu  aeternitatis  to  the  reality  of 
an  eternal  future  is  an  adaptation  of  the  Cartesian  inference  from  the  idea 
to  the  being  of  a  Cod.     Cf.  Delitz^ch,  Eibl.  Psj-ch.  vi.  §  2. 


III.]  The  doctrijie  of  Scheol.  1 1 3 

for  granted.  When  patriarchs  and  kings  are  said  in  the 
language  of  the  Old  Testament  to  be  gathered  to  their 
fathers,  it  is  not  merely  meant  that  their  bones  were  laid 
in  the  common  family  resting-place.  The  natural  scenery 
of  Palestine  probably  suggested  the  word  which  described 
the  revealed  invisible  home  of  the  spirits  of  the  dead.  ^  It 
was  "a  land  of  darkness,  as  darkness  itself;"^  the  common 
receptacle  of  the  "  small  and  great,"  of  the  "  servant  and  his 
master,"  of  kings  and  counsellors  of  the  earth,  of  prisoners 
and  of  oppressors.^  AU  were  gathered  there,  under  new 
conditions  of  life,  incompatible  with  those  earthly  forms 
of  activity  *  which  cease  at  death.  Not  that  the  dead 
are  passive  or  unconscious.  Isaiah's  description  of  the 
movement  of  spirits  in  the  unseen  world  at  the  descent 
of  the  spirit  of  the  King  of  Babylon  can  hardly  be 
resolved  into  poetical  license ;  and  it  is  observable  that 
the  heathen  monarch  is  there  together  with  the  rulers 
of  Israel.  ^  This  doctrine  of  Scheol  is  perfectly  consistent 
with  the  general  truth  that  at  death  the  human  spirit 
returns  to  God,^  and  that  the  souls  of  the  righteous  are  in 
"  His  hands,"  in  the  sense  of  being  exempted  from  torment.  "^ 
IsTor  is  it  in  any  way  at  issue  with  the  doctrine  of  a  bodily 
resurrection,  which,  while  its  early  and  distinct  appearance 
in  the  Psalter^  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  theory  of 

1  7"1SIV  is  properly  what  is  sunk  deep,  bent  in  ;   hence  a  ravine,  abyss, 

depth.     Cf.  Fuerst,  Lex.  in  voc. 

2  Job  X.  21.         3  Job  iii.  13-19.  *  Eccles.  9,  10.  "  Is.  xiv.  9,  sqq. 
«  Eccles.  xii.  7.             ''  Wisd.  iii.  1. 

8  Ps.  xvi.  10,  11  ;  Acts  ii.  25-31.     Cf.  also  Ps.  xlix.  16  ;  Ixxiii.  23,  sqq. 

I 


114      Immortality  in  the  New  Testament.     [Lect. 

its  being  due  to  Eastern  influences^  npon  tlie  Jewish 
Eevelation  at  tlie  period  of  tlie  Captivity,  does  undoubtedly, 
in  tlie  later  books,  come  very  prominently  into  view.  Aj^art 
from  a  popular  belief  in  tliis  doctrine,  the  imagery  of  Isaiah  ^ 
and  EzekieP  would  have  been  unintelligible  to  their  con- 
temporaries ;  and  both  in  the  dark  days  of  the  Captivity  in 
Babylon,*  and  in  the  later  struggle  of  the  Maccabees  against 
Antiochus  Epiphanes,  this  faith  in  a  Eesurrection  sustained 
the  oppressed  against  the  persecutors,  even  the  martyi^s  in 
their  agony.  ^  So  far  as  Alexandria  influenced  Judaism, 
it  discouraged  faith  in  a  corporeal  Eesurrection.  Philo, 
like  a  genuine  Platonist,  sees  in  death  the  emancipation  of 
the  soul  from  its  bodily  prison-house.  But  the  ruling 
religious  minds  in  Palestine  at  the  time  of  Christ's  appear- 
ance believed  in  the  resurrection  of  our  actual  bodies.^ 
Such  a  doctrine  of  course  implies  the  immortality  of  the 
soul ;  but  the  only  demonstration  of  the  truth  of  the  soul's 
immortality  is  given  in  our  Lord's  reply  to  the  Sadducees 
on  the  subject  of  the  Eesurrection.  He  argues  from  the 
title,  "  the  God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God 
of  Jacob,"  which  God  w^as  pleased  to  claim  in  centuries 
long  after  the  death  of  the  patriarchs,  that  the  patriarchs 
must  still  be  living,  because  God  is  the  God,  not  of  the 
dead,  but  of  the  living.''     By  this  general  statement  our 

^  As  suggested  by  Jul.  Miiller,  Studd.  und  Kritt,  1835. 
2  Is.  xxvi.  14-19.     3  Ezek.  xxxvii.  1-14.     Cf.  Hos.  vi.  2  ;  xiii.  14. 
*  Dan.  xii.  1-3,  13.     ^  2  Mace.  vii.  9,  11,  14,  23  ;  xii.  42-45  ;  xiv.  16. 
^  S.  Matt.  xxii.  24,  sgg. ;  Acts  xxiii.  8,  xxiv.  15.     Joseph.  Ant.  xviii.  1-3. 
BeU,  Jud.  ii.  8-14.     Qu.  by  Grimm. 

''  S.  Matt.  xxii.  32  ;  S.  Mark  xii.  27  ;  S.  Luke  xx.  38. 


III.]  Immoi^tality  andottr  Lord's  Res7crrection.    1 1 5 

Lord  apparently  implies  that  God  does  not  create  spiritual 
beings  only  that  they  may  sink  back  into  nothing.  The 
distinctive  teachino^  of  the  N"ew  Testament  abont  the  future 
world  everywhere  presupposes  the  soul's  immortality.  If 
death  were  annihilation  for  all  of  us,  or  for  all  but  the  just, 
the  descriptions  of  the  end  of  the  world,  of  the  last  judg- 
ment,^ of  the  general  resurrection,^  and  of  the  future  state, ^ 
would  have  no  interest  for  any  but  a  minority  of  mankind. 
It  is  the  steady  comdction  that,  in  some  way,  we  shall  each 
and  all  personally  subsist  after  death,  which  secures  to 
these  pages  of  our  Bibles  such  universal  interest. 

This  conviction  of  our  immortality  rests  on  what  is  for 
Christians  an  unquestioned  certainty.  In  Christian  eyes, 
the  central  fact  of  the  world's  annals  is  the  Eesurrection  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead.  It  occurred  in  the  fidl 
daylight  of  history :  it  was  attested  by  hundreds  of  witnesses.* 
We  can  only  deny  its  truth  upon  a  priori  principles,  which 
are  not  merely  destructive  of  serious  belief  that  God  is  a 
Moral  and  even  a  Living  Being,  but  which  are  also  fatal  to 
confidence  in  human  history.  The  Eesurrection  of  Christ 
is  the  guarantee  of  our  own.  The  clouds  which  hung 
around  the  gate  of  death  in  earlier  ages  have  roUed  away 

1  S.  Matt.  XXV.  31-46  ;  Acts  xvii.  31  ;  Eom.  xiv.  10  ;  2  Cor.  v.  10  ; 
2  Tim.  iv.  1  ;  1  S.  Pet.  iv.  5. 

2  S.  John  V.  28,  sqq.;  Acts  xxiv,  15. 

3  Rom.  ii.  10,  viii.  18 ;  1  Cor.  xiii.  12;  IS.  John  iii.  2 ;  Heb.  x.  26,  27; 
Rev.  xiv.  13;  S.  Matt.  viii.  12;  S.  Mark  ix.  43,  sqq.;  S.  John  xii.  26, 
xiv.  2,  sqq. ;  xvii.  24 ;  Eev.  xxi.  7,  8. 

*  1  Cor.  XV.  6,  dScpdr}  eirdvu)  irevTaKocriois  abekcpoh  e^ctTra^,  e^  Cov  ol  irXeiovi 
fiivovcriv  ews  dpri,  nues  5k  /cat  eKOifirjO-qcrav. 


1 1 6    Can  the  body  be  dispensed  with  for  ever  f  [Lect. 

since  the  day  of  our  Saviour's  triumph  over  death;  the 
presumptive  speculations  which  were  previously  rife  as  to 
the  future  state  have  been  exchanged  for  strong  certainties. 
"  Life  and  immortality  have  been  brought  to  light  by  the 
Gospel:"  "  God  has  begotten  us  again  to  a  lively  hope,  by 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead:"  Christians 
are  "  not  to  sorrow  as  those  that  have  no  hope :"  Death 
has  lost  its  sting,  and  the  grave  its  victory.^ 

Here,  too,  let  it  be  noted,  that  although  the  soul  is  the 
seat  of  man's  personal  life,  it  is  not,  as  has  been  already 
hinted,  man  in  his  completeness.  Man  is  a  body  as  well 
as  a  soul.  Materialism  itself  has  here  done  valuable  service 
in  correcting  the  exaggerations  of  a  one-sided  spiritualism. 
It  is  common,  but  erroneous,  to  speak  of  man's  body  as 
being  related  to  his  spirit  only  as  is  the  casket  to  the 
jewel  which  it  contains,  or  only  as  a  prisoner  to  the  walls 
of  his  dungeon.  2  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  personal 
spirit  of  man  strikes  its  roots  far  and  deep  into  the  encom- 
passing frame  of  sense,  with  which,  from  the  first  moment 
of  its  existence,  it  has  been  so  intimately  associated:  in  a 
thousand  ways,  and  most  powerfully,  the  body  acts  on  the 
soul,  and  the  soul  on  the  body.     They  are  only  parted  at 

1  2  Tim.  i.  10;  1  S.  Pet.  i.  3;  1  Thess.  iv.  13;  1  Cor.  xv.  ^o^. 

~  The  false  spiritualism  which  is  implied  in  these  metaphors  is,  in  modern 
times  at  least,  chiefly  due  to  the  Cartesian  philosophy.  Descartes  held  that 
the  human  soul  was  made  only  for  the  purposes  of  thought  (Disc,  sur  la 
Mdth.  pt.  5.) ;  the  animal-life  of  man  was,  as  a  consequence,  in  his  judgment, 
merely  that  of  an  independent  machine.  Madame  de  Sevigne  ralHes  this 
once  popular  theory  "  des  machines  qui  aiment,  des  machines  qui  ont  une 
election  pour  quelqu'un,  des  machines  qui  sont  jalouses,  des  machines  qui 
craignent."     QEuvr.  t.  iii.  lett.  170. 


III.]    The  body  essential  to  man  s  fiill  identity.     1 1 7 

death  by  a  violent  A^Tencli.  The  spirit  can  indeed  exist 
independently  of  the  body,  but  this  independent  existence 
is  not  its  emancipation  from  a  prison-house  of  matter  and 
sense;  it  is  a  temporary  and  abnormal  divorce  from  the 
companion  whose  presence  is  needed  to  complete  its  life. 
Would  the  soul,  permanently  severed  from^  the  body,  still 
be,  properly  speaking,  man  ?  Would  it  not  really  be  some 
other  being?  Our  inmost  consciousness  here  echoes  the 
answer  of  science.  The  body  which  has  been  so  long  the 
associate  and  partner  of  the  soul's  life,  the  instrument  of 
its  will,  the  minister  of  its  passions,  mingling  lower  physical 
sensations  with  that  higher  life  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
belongs  to  it,  could  not  be  altogether  cast  away  without 
impairing  the  completeness  of  our  being,  without  imperilling 
the  continuous  identity  of  our  changeful  existence. 

This,  then,  is  the  true  ground  of  the  general  resurrection, 
which  is  no  eccentric  or  gratuitous  miracle,  but  the  restora- 
tion to  man  of  that  completeness  of  identity  which  is  im- 
paired by  death.  If  the  body  did  not  rise,  man  would,  by 
dying,  not  simply  enter  upon  a  new  stage  of  being;  he 
would  exist  as  a  different  order  or  species  of  creature.  His 
moral  history  would  have  changed  its  conditions  and 
character.  The  disembodied  spirit  might  repudiate  the 
weaknesses  or  excesses  of  the  companion  with  which  it 
had  finally  parted  company.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  aU  men 
are  to  rise  again  with  their  bodies,  and  to  give  account  of 
their  own  works:  the  complex  being  which  acted  here,  is  to 
be  judged  hereafter. 


1 1 8  Bearing  of  religion  on  oittward  things.   [Lect. 

The  body  and  soul  together  share  here  in  one  composite 
existence;  each  acts  upon  the  other  as  well  as  with  it. 
The  corruptible  body  presseth  down  the  soul.  The  passions 
which  have  their  seat  in  the  soul  depict  themselves  upon 
the  surface  of  the  body.  On  the  one  hand,  an  Apostle 
reminds  us  that  fleshly  lusts  war  not  merely  against  the 
bodily  health,  but  against  the  soul.  ^  On  the  other  hand, 
a  beautiful  soul  illuminates  the  face  of  a  S.  Stephen 
with  angelic  light ;  ^  and  hereafter  the  bodies  of  the 
blessed  wiU  be  "  glorious,"  that  is  to  say,  translucent 
with  the  splendours  of  the  glorified  spirit.^ 


IV. 


Eeligion,  in  order  to  meet  the  wants  of  human  nature, 
will  take  account  of  man's  composite  being :  she  will  have 
lower  relations  to  the  bodies  as  well  as  higher  relations  to 
the  souls  of  men.  As  man  has,  besides  his  unseen  person, 
an  outward  and  visible  shape,  so  will  religion  herself  pro- 
vide sensible  forms  as  well  as  supersensuous  realities. 
She  will  exact  outward  as  well  as  inward  reverence,  because 
in  a  composite  being  like  man,  the  one  is  really  the  con- 
dition of  the  other.  There  are  bodily  postures  which 
absolutely  forbid  heavenly  exercises  to  the  soul :  to  lounge 
in  an  arm-chair  is  inconsistent  with  the  tension  of  thought 

1 1  S.  Pet.  ii.  11.  2  ^cts  vi.  15.  -  1  Cor.  xv.  43. 


III.]     Religion  based  on  sense  of  immortality.     119 

and  will  which  belongs  to  adoration  of  the  Most  Holy. 
Eeligiou,  like  man  himself,  is  a  beautiful  spirit  tabernacling 
in  a  body  of  sense ;  her  divine  and  immutable  truths  are 
shrouded  beneath  the  unrivalled  poetry  of  Bible  language ; 
her  treasiu^es  of  gTace  beneath  the  outward  and  visible 
signs  which  meet  us  in  sacraments.  She  proclaims  the 
invisible  by  that  which  meets  the  eye ;  she  heralds  the 
eternal  harmonies  by  a  music  that  falls  upon  the  ear.  She 
certainly  is  not  all  form,  for  man  is  not  a  brute ;  but  also 
she  is  not  all  spirit,  for  man  is  not  an  angel.  She  deals 
with  man  as  being  precisely  what  he  is,  and  she  enlists 
the  lower  faculties  of  his  being  in  aid  of  the  higher.  Yet 
if  she  is  true  to  man  and  to  herself,  she  never  allows  hmi 
to  forget  the  unseen  in  the  seen,  the  inward  in  the  outward, 
the  soul  in  the  body.  For  religious  purposes,  the  soul 
must  always  be  incomparably  of  the  highest  importance, 
as  being  the  very  man  himself,  the  man  in  the  secret 
recesses  of  his  being,  the  man  at  the  imperishable  centre 
of  his  life,  the  man  as  he  lives  beneath  the  Eye,  and  enters 
into  relations  with  the  Heart  of  his  infinite  Creator. 

Certainly  if  belief  in  our  being  personal  spirits  is  essential 
to  relioion,  and  belief  in  the  immediate  creation  of  the  soul 
by  God  is  stimulating  to  it,  belief  in  the  soul's  immortality 
is  of  yet  higher  religious  importance.  The  relation  between 
God  and  the  soul,  in  which  religion  consists,  would  be  little 
more  to  us  than  a  sentiment  or  a  literary  taste,  if  we  were 
persuaded  that  we  should  have  taken  leave  of  it,  as  we 
shaU  have  taken  leave  of  our  clothes  and  of  our  books. 


1 20    Religion  impossible^  if  all  ends  at  death.   [Lect. 

when  we  are  laid  in  our  coffins.  Would  religion  be  worth 
our  attention  as  serious  men,  would  it  be  anything  more 
than  a  plaything,  if  all  really  ended  at  death  ?  That  the 
soul  is  immortal,  standing  in  its  immortality,  for  weal  or 
woe,  face  to  face  with  the  Everlasting  God ; — this  truth, 
dimly  grasped  by  natural  religion,  has  been  wrought  into 
the  very  heart  and  fibre  of  Christendom.  It  is  taken  for 
granted  by  Christian  faith  just  as  naturally  as  is  the  fact 
of  life  itself.  It  underlies  that  sense  of  an  eternal  life  which 
good  men  already  enjoy  here,  and  which  implies  not  simply 
a  consciousness  that  admits  of  no  idea  of  succession  or 
time,  but  an  immortal  soul  in  fixed  communion  with  an 
Eternal  Object.  It  teaches  man  to  look  upon  all  the  acts 
and  habits  which  really  feed  and  strengthen  religion  as  a 
part  of  his  ^preparation  and  outfit  for  eternity,  to  be  in  some 
sense  carried  with  him  as  he  crosses  the  heights  which  form 
his  present  horizon,  and  which  shut  out  from  his  view 
the  eternal  world.  And  thus  it  has  elevated  and  enriched 
human  nature  in  a  thousand  ways,  which  we  only  do  not 
sufficiently  appreciate  because  we  are  so  entirely  accustomed 
to  them. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  by  an  example.  Putting  reHgion 
for  the  moment  out  of  the  question  altogether,  there  is  no 
doubt  as  to  the  view  which  a  ^philanthropist  must  take  of 
suicide,  suj)posing  it  to  become  general,  and  regarding  it  in 
its  influence  upon  society.  When  a  popular  Cyi^enaic 
teacher,  Hegesias,  advocated  suicide,  at  Alexandria,  as 
being  the  course   upon  which  a  really  wise   man   would 


III.]  Christian  estimate  of  sicicide.  121 

resolve  after  comparing  the  sum  of  tlie  pleasures  of  life 
^yitll  tlie  sum  of  its  misfortunes,  Ptolemy  felt  it  necessary, 
in  the  interests  of  good  government  and  of  society,  to 
oblige  him  to  close  his  lecture-room.  But  the  sentiment 
with  which  suicide  is  practically  regarded  among  us  is  not 
based  on  any  mere  estimate  of  its  social  bearings,  still  less 
is  it  looked  upon  only  as  a  mode  of  passing  out  of  life. 
The  announcement  that  this  or  that  well-known  man  had 
destroyed  himself  would  create  in  any  modern  society  a 
sensation  distinct  in  kind  from  that  which  Avould  be  caused 
by  the  simple  announcement  of  his  death.  ^  "Why  is  this  ? 
It  is  because  Christianity,  revealing  to  man  as  a  certainty 
the  fact  of  his  immortality,  has  given  a  new  meaning,  value, 
solemnity  to  life.  To  live  is  to  be  on  our  trial,  with  a 
tremendous  future  immediately  before  us ;  and  to  shorten 
this  trial  by  a  voluntary  act,  is,  apart  from  other  and  even 
graver  aspects  of  such  an  act,  felt  to  be  altogether  irrecon- 
cileable  with  this,  the  Christian  estimate  of  life.^ 

Considering  the  strength  of  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion which  is  naturally  implanted  in  us,  suicide  shocks  us 
as  beino-  a  violent   contradiction  of  that   instinct.      Yet 

o 

while  cases  of  suicide  are  to  be  found  here  and  there,  in 
all  times  and  districts  of  history,  there  have  been  periods 
and  places  when  suicide  has  been  nothing  less  than  a  passion 

^  Since  this  observation  was  made,  it  has  been  painfully  ihustrated  in  the 
case  of  the  lamented  M.  Prevost-Paradol. 

2  Lecky,  "  History  of  European  Morals,"  ii.  52.  "  Direct  and  deliberate 
suicide,  which  occupies  so  prominent  a  place  in  the  moral  history  of  antiquity, 
almost  absolutely  disappeared  within  the  Church."  Cf.  pp.  40-63  of  this 
interesting  chapter. 


122  Pagan  theories  of  suicide.  [Lect. 

— a  moral  epidemic  swaying  the  imaginations  and  wills  of 
wdiole  classes  even  of  educated  men.  In  India  suicide  has 
been  for  at  least  two  thousand  years  the  result  of  energetic 
conviction ;  it  is  stiU  what  it  was  at  the  date  of  Alexander's 
conquest.  It  is  at  this  day  the  effort  by  which  the  indivi- 
dual would  plunge  into  the  infinite,  in  which  it  is  his  pre- 
sumed happiness  to  forfeit  his  individuality ;  whether  that 
infinite  be  the  supreme  soul  of  the  Brahmins,  or  the 
Mrvana  of  the  Buddhists.  In  Greece  and  Kome,  suicide 
was  a  precept  not  of  religion  but  of  philosophy.  It  was 
recommended  by  philosophies  the  most  opposed  to  each 
other.  In  Greece  the  great  representatives  of  the  Cynic 
school,  Zeno,  Diogenes,  and  in  Christian  times,  Peregrinus, 
died  by  their  own  hands.  The  Cyrenaics  formulated  the 
doctrine  of  suicide,  as  an  escape  from  the  preponderating 
miseries  of  life.  At  Eome,  Lucretius,  the  Epicurean 
poet,  as  well  as  Cato  and  Brutus,  under  Stoic  influences, 
destroyed  themselves.  The  Epicurean  feeling,  that  when 
life  had  been  made  the  most  of  for  the  purposes  of 
enjoyment  it  was  time  to  end  it,  coincided  as  to  its 
practical  result  with  the  Stoic  doctrine  that  the  stern 
effort  by  which  man  could  in  extremity  make  good  his  self- 
mastery  is  a  voluntary  death.  Of  this  doctrine  Seneca  is 
the  gTeat  master.  Suicide  is,  he  contends,  the  act  by  whicli 
man  asserts  Iris  rights  over  himself,  when  face  to  face  with 
the  menaces  and  oppressions  of  tyranny :  suicide  is  the  door 
though  which  liberty  may  retire  from  a  world  of  slaves. 
This  doctrine  especially  it  was  which  dictated  suicide 


III.]  Suicide  imder  the  Reiiaissance.  123 

on  a  considerable  scale  in  the  first  of  tlie  three  j)eriods 
when  like  a  moral  plague  it  has  darkened  the  life  of 
Europe.  During  the  later  days  of  the  Eoman  Eepublic, 
and  under  the  stern  Csesarism  of  the  Empire,  suicide  was 
recommended  and  practised  as  an  escape  from  the  political 
and  social  evils  of  the  time.  The  spirit  of  suicide  only 
fell  back  before  the  advance  of  the  Church;  and  more 
than  three  centuries  after  Seneca,  we  find  S.  Augustine 
combating  his  arguments  one  by  one  in  the  closing  books 
of  the  treatise  on  the  City  of  God.  The  second  period 
was  that  of  the  Eenaissance  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Suicide  had  nearly  disappeared  during  the  Middle  Ages ; 
but  when  educated  Italy,  with  Leo  X.  at  its  head,  had 
saturated  itself  afresh  with  Paganism,  it  was  natural  that 
some  of  the  moral  ideas  of  antiquity  should  reappear  in 
the  train  of  so  engrossing  a  study  of  its  mind  and  style. 
Philippo  Strozzi,  the  prisoner  of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo  I., 
destroys  himself,  praying  God — it  is  an  odd  mixture  of 
Christian  and  Pagan  creeds — that  his  soul  may  be  placed 
along  with  the  soul  of  Cato  of  Utica,  and  of  others  who 
have  died  after  the  same  fashion.  Montaigne  in  his  essays 
defends  suicide  elaborately;  and  in  time  it  had  its  de- 
votees in  England,  no  less  than  in  France  and  Italy.  The 
more  positive  and  earnest  Clmstianity  of  the  seventeenth 
century  brought  with  it  a  more  worthy  appreciation  of 
the  real  seriousness  of  life  :  but  in  the  succeeding  age  the 
taste  for  suicide  was  renewed,  not  as  a  part  of  the  com- 
plete Pagan  ideal  of  conduct,  but  as  the  fruit  of  a  melan- 


1 24     Suicide  at  the  end  of  the  last  centicry.    [IjECT. 

clioly  estimate  of  our  condition  in  tliis  world,  joined  to 
impaired  or  decomposing  religious  convictions.  The  felt 
disappointments  of  life  as  a  whole,  the  absence  of  fixed 
aims,  the  culture  of  imagination  and  passion  without  any 
regulating  faith,  the  feverish  indecision,  the  languid  yet 
ever  -  growing  self-idolatry,  the  moral  atmosphere  of 
impatience,  irritation,  curiosity,  the  mingled  rapture  and  ' 
pain  of  vagrant  imagination,  the  utter  caprice  and  prostra- 
tion of  will, — these  w^ere  the  characteristics  of  a  period 
wdiich  was  impersonated  by,  and  which  recognized  itself 
at  length  in  Goethe.  In  the  earnestness  as  well  as  in  the 
levity  of  an  irreligious  age,  the  ordinary  motives  to  self- 
destruction  acquired  a  new  and  fatal  force ;  and  the  grow- 
ing evil  was  only  checked  by  the  Christian  reaction  which 
followed  on  the  French  Eevolution  throughout  Europe; 
and  which  again  restored  belief  in  the  solemnity  of  life  by 
forcing  men  to  look  steadily  at  the  eternity  which  succeeds 
it.  Certainly,  we  have  only  to  refer  to  yesterday's  paper  ^ 
to  read  the  account  of  a  suicide  from  London  Bridge. 
Domestic  misfortunes,  temporary  derangement,  moral 
despair,  still  count  their  too  immerous  tale  of  victims. 
But  it  is  a  simple  matter  of  fact  that  belief  in  a  future 
state,  as  taught  by  Christ  and  His  Apostles,  is  the  one 
adequate  antidote  to  this  weird  contempt  for  the  gift  of 
existence — a  contempt  which  cannot  really  extinguish  the 
gift  which  it  yet  can  so  irretrievably  curse.  ^ 

1  Standard,  March  19,  1870. 

-  On  this  subject  the  opening  Essay  in  M.  Caro's  Nouvelles  Etudes  Morales 
is  full  of  interest ;  and  I  am  indebted  to  it  in  the  foregoing  paragraphs. 


III.]     Christianity  and  the  value  of  the  sotd.       125 

It  would  be  easy  to  sliew  in  like  manner  Iioav — sometimes 
directly,  sometimes  indirectly — Christianity  lias  bettered  the 
condition  of  the  masses  of  mankind  by  making  Christians 
feel  the  value  of  each  separate  life.  Our  Lord  has  done  this, 
as  no  other  has  done  it:  nowhere  is  human  life  thought  so 
highly  of  as  where  the  Christian  creed  is  sincerely  believed 
to  be  absolute  truth.  The  history  of  infanticide  is  one 
among  other  illustrations  of  this  result  of  a  hearty  belief  in 
immortality.  The  great  Christian  doctrines  centre  in,  they 
are  unintelligible  apart  from,  faith  in  the  value  of  the  indi- 
vidual soul.  The  soul's  value  is  measured  in  a  Christian's 
judgment  by  the  stupendous  truth  of  the  Incarnation  and 
Death  of  the  Everlasting  Son;  by  the  gift  and  energies  of 
the  Divine  Spirit;  by  the  perpetual  intercession  of  Christ 
in  heaven;  by  the  grace  and  power  of  the  Sacraments;  by 
the  prospects  which  open  to  faith's  eye  beyond  the  grave — 
upwards  into  an  illimitable  heai^en,  downwards  into  a 
fathomless  hell.  Confronted  with  each  of  these  truths,  the 
soul  confidently,  yet  tremblingly,  feels  its  dignity — its  price- 
less dignity — in  the  eye  of  its  Maker.  The  soul  feels  as  if, 
#hen  it  turns  awdiile  from  the  daily  round  of  duty  to  gather 
itself  up  into  itself,  to  sink  a  shaft  into  the  depths  of  its 
consciousness,  there  w^ere  two,  and  only  two,  beings  ia  ex- 
istence— itself  and  its  God.  To  know  more  of  Him,  to  love 
Him  more,  to  serve  Him  better — this  is  its  constant  effort ; 
and  its  hope  and  prayer  is  to  receive  day  by  day,  in  larger 
measures,  more  abundant  communications  of  His  mind  and 
of  His  life,     In  a  word,  when  dwelling  on  the  soul's  nature 


126         Oitr  business  is  to  save  02cr  sotds.        [Lect. 

and  destiny,  man  understands  that  religion  is  his  highest 
and  most  reasonable  field  of  thought  and  work. 

It  has  indeed  been  said  that  the  old  phrase  of  "  saving 
one's  soul "  has  ceased  to  have  much  meaning  for  the  religion 
of  educated  people  in  the  present  day.  If  this  be  indeed 
true,  we  can  only  rejoin,  in  all  truth  and  sorrow,  "  so  much 
the  worse  for  the  educated  people."  Wliatever  be  a  man's 
place  in  society  or  in  letters,  whatever  his  circumstances  in 
this  earthly  scene,  it  remains  true  that,  to  close  with  the 
offers  which  Christ  makes  to  sinners,  to  "  work  out  his  salva- 
tion with  fear  and  trembling,"  is  his  one  most  important 
business  here.  The  eternal  realities  do  not  change  with 
our  intellectual  fashions ;  and  like  the  laws  which  govern 
our  physical  frames,  the  spiritual  rules  under  which  men 
live  or  die  are  the  same  for  all  of  us.  The  day  will  come 
when  the  God-fearing  peasants  of  Devonshire  or  of  York- 
shire will  rise  in  judgment  against  the  cultured  irreligion 
of  the  centres  of  our  modern  civilisation:  not  because  it  is 
cultured,  but  because  it  is  irreligion;  because  in  the  glare 
of  its  enthusiasms  for  the  additions  which  it  has  made  to 
the  knowledge  of  our  material  home  and  structure,  it  has 
forgotten  almost  or  altogether  the  Eternal  Home  beyond. 

The  salvation  of  the  soul  can  only  be  treated  as  an  old- 
world  anachronism,  when  it  is  clear  either  that  man  has  no 
real  soul,  or  that  it  does  not  survive  death,  or  that  if  it  does 
survive,  its  condition  hereafter  has  no  reference  whatever 
to  its  state  and  actions  here.  If  this  be  really  meant,  it  is 
better  to  say  so;  only,  in  that  case,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what 


III.]        Awfulness  and  blessedness  of  life.  127 

sphere  is  left  for  religion  at  all.  If  it  be  not  meant,  tlien, 
undoubtedly,  a  variety  of  the  gravest  questions  at  once 
open  before  us,  both  as  to  what  we  have  to  be  saved  from, 
and  as  to  the  means  and  conditions  of  our  salvation.  Upon 
the  first  of  these  questions,  we  shall  encounter  in  the  next 
lecture  some  of  the  more  serious  differences  which  divide 
the  modern  world:  to-day  it  must  suffice  to  have  insisted 
upon  the  mingled  blessedness  and  awfulness  of  life.  "V\^iat 
it  is  to  live  here  at  all  as  a  human  being ;  what  it  is  to 
possess  or  ratlier  to  be  a  centre  of  self-reflecting  thought, 
of  self- determining  will,  a  centre  of  life  which  under  some 
conditions  will  be  perpetuated  indefinitely; — this,  when  we 
think  of  it  steadily  and  in  good  earnest,  is,  next  to  the 
spiritual  sight  of  God  Himself,  the  most  solemn,  the  most 
chastening,  the  most  stimulating  consideration  that  can 
open  upon  us.  Let  us  make  much  of  it,  in  the  interests 
both  of  the  present  and  of  the  future,  for  the  sake  of  God 
and  truth,  as  well  as  of  our  OAvn  lasting  happiness.  Let  us 
determine  to  ask  ourselves  again  and  again  during  the 
coming  week,  what  in  our  inmost  selves  we  really  are,  and, 
next,  whither  we  are  going.  Let  us  listen  to  a  voice  which 
will  at  times  find  some  echo  in  every  conscience,  and  which 
bids  us,  in  God's  name,  reflect  that  "  the  things  which  are 
seen  are  temporal,  while  the  things  which  are  not  seen 
are  eternal." 


LECTURE  IV. 

dFourtfj  Suntrag  in  iient* 

THE  OBSTACLE  TO  EELIGION-SIK 

S.  James  i.  15. 

TMien  desire  hath  conceived,  it  hrinjeth  forth  sin;   and  sin,  when  it  is 
finished,  hringeth  forth  death. 

rpHE  ground  wliicli  we  have  hitherto  traversed  is,  in  the 
-■-  main,  common  ground  to  those  who  accept  the  idea 
of  religion  in  any  serious  sense  at  all.  Eeligion  is  im- 
possible, except  as  a  bond  between  a  real,  that  is  to  say,  a 
moral  and  governing  God,  and  a  real,  that  is  to  say,  a 
conscious,  self- determining,  immortal  soul.  Deny  either 
term  of  the  statement,  and  religion  dissolves  into  an 
unpractical  sentiment,  which  either  has  no  adequate  object, 
or  else  no  adequate  subject  and  field  for  its  existence. 
Hitherto,  therefore,  at  least  generally,  we  have  occupied 
positions  which  may  be  taken  up  even  by  theories  which 
are  very  earnestly  opposed  to  some  of  the  most  distinctive 
features  of  the  Christian  creed.  But  to-day  we  advance  a 
step  further;  and  this  advance,  it  is  well  to  say  at  the 
outset,  must  forfeit  the  sympatliy  of  many  who  have  thus 


Lect.  IY.]  Siji,  not  an  invention  of  Christianity.   129 

far  been  able  to  accompany  us.  We  have  readied  a  point 
at  which  we  encounter  a  fact  of  such  widespread  and 
deep  significance,  that  it  must  perforce  colour  and  impress 
any  real  religion,  from  first  to  last;  so  that  its  pressure 
and  importance  are  felt  both  in  the  drift  and  substance  of 
religious  belief,  and  in  the  characteristic  temper  and  dis- 
positions of  a  religious  mind.  The  fact  in  question  is 
moral  evil.  Moral  evil,  or  sin,  is  the  disturbing  and  dis- 
organizing force  which  breaks  up  the  original  relationship 
of  love  and  confidence  between  God  and  man.  In  view  of 
moral  evil,  revelation  must  be  not  merely  illuminative,  but 
remedial ;  and  religion,  in  order  to  be  true  to  the  facts  of 
human  nature,  must  consist  predominantly  of  penitence 
and  contrition.  And  Christianity  is  broadly  at  issue  with 
not  a  few  of  the  religious  proposals  which  aspire  to  take 
its  place  in  the  present  day  on  this  very  ground.  It  does, 
and  they  do  not,  practically  recognize  this  universal  and 
fundamental  fact :  they  do,  and  it  will  not,  consent  to  gloss 
it  over,  or  to  explain  it  away,  or  to  assume  that  man's 
religious  wants  can  be  really  satisfied  without  looking  it 
boldly  in  the  face,  and  providing  against  it  a  cure  and  an 
antidote. 

It  would  be  a  very  great  error  to  suppose  that  Christi- 
anity has  invented  the  idea  of  sin  only  for  the  purpose 
of  remedying  it.  If  sin  were  not  a  fact  independent  of 
Christianity ;  if  it  were  not  an  integral  feature  of  human 
life,  Christianity  would  long  ago  have  perished.  In  the 
spiritual  world,  too,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  supply  and 

K 


1 30  Sin7^ecognizedi7ij2idaism  &  Heathendom.  [Lect. 

demand;  and  if  a  religion  pre-supposes  wants  wliicli  do 
not  exist,  and  brings  remedies  for  diseases  of  wliicli  nobody 
is  conscious,  it  has  already  signed  its  deatli-warrant.  It  is 
true  that  Christianity,  as  a  revelation  of  the  highest  moral 
truth,  has,  beyond  any  other  religion,  educated  man's  sense 
of  sin;  but  this  sense  of  sin  was  not  itself  a  result  of 
Christianity.  Long  before  Christ  came,  the  moral  sin  and 
sickness  of  the  world  was  felt,  rather  than  explicitly 
recognized.  It  was  of  course  recognized  by  the  educated 
conscience  of  Israel,  with  its  moral  law,  creating  a  know- 
ledge of  sin,  and  its  sacrificial  system,  deepening  the  sense 
of  the  guilt  of  sin,  and  its  prophetic  ministry,  bringing 
these  general  truths  home  with  an  unflinching  courage  and 
precision  to  the  sinful  kings  and  populations  of  the  later 
centuries  of  its  history.  But  this  heart-sickness  of  the 
world  was  also  a  fact  very  vividly  present  to  the  com- 
paratively uneducated  conscience  of  Greece.  What  makes 
a  great  heathen  say  that  even  if  death  does  involve  endless 
unconsciousness,  it  ought,  nevertheless,  to  be  looked  upon 
as  substantial  gain ;  a  deep  sleep  throughout  a  lifetime,  a 
sleep  unbroken  by  dreams,  being,  in  his  opinion,  preferable 
to  the  active  life  of  the  most  fortunate  of  mankind  ? 
Probably  he  could  not  have  told  us  the  real  reason ;  this 
was  an  instinct  of  his  rather  than  a  reasoned  judgment. 
He  instinctively  perceived  that  in  human  life,  as  he  saw  it, 
even  under  its  brightest  aspects,  there  was  on  the  whole 
more  evil  than  good.  More  evil  than  good, — but  not 
merely  or  chiefly  more  physical  evil.     The  natural  courage 


IV.]  The  sense  of  si7i  in  Heathendom.  131 

of  a  gTeat  soul  would  never  have  regarded  a  preponderance 
of  misfortune  or  of  pain  in  a  human  life  as  a  reason  for 
wishing  to  be  practically  non-existent.  The  evil  which 
decided  the  balance  of  judgment  against  the  expediency  of 
life,  was  more  penetrating,  more  oppressive,  more  fatal  to 
the  sense  of  having  a  right  to  live  than  any  pain  of  body, 
or  loss  of  friends  or  of  goods  could  possibly  be.  It  was,  in 
a  word,  moral  evil.  The  heathen  knew  of  the  existence  of 
moral  evil,  but  they  had  very  imperfect  ideas  of  its  extent 
and  nature.  They  knew  that  there  was  a  right  and  a 
wrong,  to  which  man  is  bound  to  conform  himself;  but 
what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong,  and  why  right  is  right, 
and  wrong  is  wrong,  these  were  subjects  upon  which  their 
knowledge  was  exceeding  imperfect.  But  the  general  fact 
of  man's  disloyalty  to  such  moral  truth,  as  he  knew,  is 
often  admitted  by  the  leading  minds  of  antiquity.  They 
acknowledge  man's  secret  misery ;  his  proneness  to  yield  to 
temptations  which  his  conscience  condemns  ;  his  forfeiture 
of  the  light  which  he  actually  enjoys  by  disobedience  to 
its  requirements.  "  I  see  and  approve  of  the  better 
course,"  says  Horace,  "  I  follow  the  worse."  "  Nature  has 
given  us  small  sparks  of  knowledge,"  says  Cicero,  "  we 
corrupt  and  extinguish  them  by  our  immoralities."  "  AVe 
are  all  wicked,"  says  Seneca,  "  what  one  of  us  blames  in 
another,  each  will  find  in  his  own  bosom."  ^ 

The  Epistle  to  the  Eomans  itself,  which  sets  out  by 
shewing  that  both  the  Jewish   and   Gentile   worlds,   by 

^  Quoted  by  Luthardt. 


1 3  2  The  melancholy  of  Werther.  [Lect. 

reason  of  the  sin  wliicli  had  overmastered  tliem,  stood  in 
need  of  the  justifying  righteousness  of  Christ,  is  scarcely 
more  explicit  in  its  assertions  than  are  these  great  heathen. 
For  to  o1)serve  human  life-  at  all,  and  to  reflect  on  the 
observation,  is  to  be   conscious  of  its   moral   anomalies. 
This  consciousness  often   takes   the  disguised  form  of  a 
bitter  complaint  against  the  external  conditions,  nay,  the 
very  fact  of  life  itself.     So  it  was  at  the  end  of  the  last 
century.     Werther  translated  Hamlet  into  the   language 
of  modern   life,    and    Goethe    made   Werther   European. 
Werther  embodied  the  philosophy  of  melancholy;  of  dis- 
satisfaction with   life,   grounded   on  a  sense  of  hopeless 
irretrievable  failure.      In  days  nearer  to  our   own,   this 
Pessimism   has   found   a   prophet   in    Schopenhauer,   the 
philosopher  of  Frankfort.     "  The  history  of  every  life,"  he 
says,  "  is  but  a  history  of  suffering ;  the  course  of  life  is 
generally  but  a  series  of  greater  or  of  less  misfortunes. 
The  true  sense  of  the  monologue  in  Hamlet  may  be  thus 
summed   up.      Our  condition   is  so  wretched  that  utter 
annihilation  would  be  decidedly  preferable."     ..."  The 
oft-lamented   shortness  of  life   may  perhaps  be   its  best 
attribute."      ..."  Life,"   he   pursues,   "  may   be   re- 
presented as  a  constant  deceiver  in  things  both  great  and 
small.     If  it  makes  promises,  it  never  keeps  them,  except 
to  shew  how  undesirable  is  that  which  was  desired.      First 
the  hope,  then  the  thing  hoped  for,  disappoints  us.     Life 
gives  only  to  take  away.     The  charm  of  distance  shews  us  a 
paradise,  which  vanishes  like  an  optical  delusion,  if  we 


IV.]  The  Pessimism  of  Schopeiihaiier.  133 

allow  ourselves  to  approach  it.  Hence  our  happiness  ever 
lies  in  the  future  or  in  the  past ;  the  present  may  be  com- 
pared to  a  dark  cloud  which  the  wind  drives  before  it  over 
the  sunny  plain ;  behind  it  there  is  the  sunshine,  beneath 
it  a  constant  shadow.  Life  is  consequently  ever  unsatisfy- 
ing; the  future  being  uncertain,  the  past  irrecoverable. 
Life  with  its  hourly,  daily,  weekly,  and  yearly,  little,  great, 
and  greater  discomforts ;  with  its  disappointments,  its 
misfortunes,  baffling  all  calculation ;  bears  so  plainly  the 
impress  of  something  which  is  to  be  spoilt  to  us,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine  how  this  could  ever  have  been  mistaken, 
and  how  any  one  could  have  conceived  that  life  was  given 
to  be  thankfully  enjoyed,  or  man  made  to  be  happy.  The 
general  structure  of  life  would  rather  produce  the  convic- 
tion that  nothing  is  worth  our  efforts,  our  energies,  -and 
our  struggles;  that  all  possessions  are  vanity^  the  world 
a  bankrupt  in  all  quarters,  and  life  a  business  which  does 
not  pay  its  expenses.  Satisfaction  and  prosperity  are 
merely  negative — merely  the  absence  of  suffering;  only 
sorrow  and  want  can  be  positively  felt."  .  .  .  "We 
do  not  perceive  that  certain  days  of  our  lives  have  been 
happy  till  they  have  given  place  to  unhappy  ones.  If,  then, 
there  were  a  hundred  times  less  sorrow  in  the  world  than 
there  is,  its  mere  existence  would  be  enough  to  confirm  a 
truth  expressed  in  various  ways,  though  always  with  some 
indirectness — namely,  that  the  existence  of  the  world  is  a 
matter  not  of  rejoicing  but  of  grief ;  that  its  annihilation 
would  be  preferaljle  to  its  existence ;  tliat  it  is  fundamen- 


134         S.  Paid  on  tJie  groans  of  creation.      [Lect. 

tally  something  wliicli  ought  not  to  exist.  Human  life, 
far  from  wearing  the  aspect  of  a  gift,  has  every  appearance 
of  an  incurred  debt,  the  payment  of  which  is  exacted  in 
the  form  of  the  urgent  necessities,  the  tormenting  desires, 
the  unceasing  want  which  life  involves.  The  whole  period 
of  life  is  generally  consumed  in  the  liquidation  of  this  debt, 
and  yet  it  is  only  the  interest  which  can  be  thus  paid  off. 
The  payment  of  the  capital  is  effected  by  death."  ^ 

Such  is  Schopenhauer's  reply  to  the  sunny  Optimism 
of  Leibnitz,  who  deems  this  "  the  best  of  possible  worlds"  ; 
and  in  this  philosophy  of  despair  we  listen  to  the  same 
chord  as  that  abeady  struck  by  the  Platonic  Socrates,  only 
the  despair  is  deej)er  and  sadder  than  was  possible  for  a 
heathen,  who  had  never  heard  of  a  Christian's  hope.  For 
Schopenhauer  might  also  seem  at  times  to  be  expanding 
and  paraphrasing  S.  Paul's  picture  of  the  whole  creation 
groaning  and  travaiHng  in  pain  together  until  now ;  only 
S.  Paid  saw  light  upon  the  distant  horizon,  and  he  knew 
the  secret  of  the  present  distress.  It  was  moral  evil  wliich 
had  introduced  this  unrest  and  disorder,  or  which,  if  it  had 
not  introduced  all  physical  suffering  into  the  universe,  at 
least  had  made  it  so  intolerable.  The  aggravated,  un- 
appeasable restlessness  which  results  from  a  conscious 
forfeiture  of  the  harmony  of  our  being  with  the  moral  law 
of  the  universe; — this  it  is  wliicli  quickens  the  agony  of 
that  j)iteous  wail  to  which  we  have  just  been  listening : 

^  Schopenhauer,  Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstelluiig,  §  67,  59,  ii.  46, 
qu.  by  Luthardt,  Apolog,  Vortr.  Vorles,  2,  Notes. 


lY.l  Oi'igin  of  moral  evil.  135 

this  it  is  which  lights  up  in  the  human  consciousness  the 
sense  of  an  ahnost  infinite  capacity  for  pain. 


The  presence  and  power  of  moral  evil  in  the  world  has 
ever  afforded  matter  for  the  persevering,  anxious,  weary 
exercise  of  human  thought.  The  difiiculties  of  the  problem 
have  not  silenced  inquiry  ;  the  failure  of  one  generation  of 
thinkers  has  not  discouraged  another.  Like  the  movements 
of  the  heavenly  bodies,  or  the  laws  of  health,  the  existence 
of  moral  evil  is  too  patent,  too  importunate  a  subject,  to  be 
permanently  set  aside  by  human  beings :  it  exerts  over  all 
who  seriously  consider  the  meaning  and  facts  of  life  too 
irresistible  a  fascination  not  to  demand  from  each  generation 
some  attempt  at  accounting  for  it,  however  others  may 
have  failed  to  do  so.  And  in  dealing  with  this  problem 
let  us  observe  that  there  are  two  fatal  tendencies,  which 
beset,  on  this  side  and  on  that,  the  necessary  path  of 
inquiry  with  the  importunity  of  a  resistless  fascination. 
Like  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  they  divide  between  them  the 
great  majority  of  those  who  would  attempt  a  passage ;  to 
escape  from  the  one  is  generally  to  fall  a  victim  to  the 
attractions  or  violence  of  the  other.  Our  path  then  lies 
between  the  temptation  to  extenuate  the  idea  of  evil,  and 
the  temptation  to  tamper  with  the  idea  of  God. 


136  Spinoza  s  theory  of  moral  evil.        [Lect. 

1.  Of  these,  the  more  welcome  to  the  spirit  of  our  time 
is  the  former.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  moral  evil 
exists  ;  but  is  it  impossible  to  soften  that  stern  idea  of  evil 
which  haunts  the  human  conscience,  and  which  is  sanctioned 
by  Eevelation  ?  May  not  moral  evil  be  represented  as  a 
necessary  product  of  man's  nature  and  constitution,  as  the 
mere  expression  and  symptom  of  his  place  among  created 
beings,  nay,  even  as  an  indispensable  condition  of  his 
turning  his  opportunities  to  the  best  account  and  of 
fulfilling  his  destiny  ?  Yes,  it  has  been  said,  sin  in  man 
is  only  the  measure  of  his  failure  to  achieve  ideal  or 
metaphysical  perfection.  Man  is  confessedly  a  finite 
being ;  and  the  evil  which  clings  to  him,  or  which  he  does, 
is  but  an  appropriate  feature  of  his  original  circumstances. 
"  The  good  is  that  which  is,  or  the  real :  evil  begins  with 
that  which  is  not,  or  with  the  unreal."  Therefore  the 
Unbounded,  All-powerful  Being  is  alone  the  good,  be- 
cause of  His  Infinity  and  Almightiness.  Creatures  are 
partly  good  and  partly  evil ;  they  are  good  so  far  as  they 
exist ;  their  evil  begins  with  their  finitude ;  it  begins  at 
the  point  where  their  little  life  shades  oft  through  weak- 
ness into  non-existence.  In  this  sense  too,  "  whatever  is, 
is  right :"  whatever  tries  to  be,  and  cannot  be,  is  wrong. 
Sin  and  weakness,  strength  and  virtue,  are  interchangeable 
terms.  Man  as  a  moral  agent  suffers  in  two  ways  for  this 
metaphysical  imperfection  of  his  life.  His  knowledge  of 
duty  is  very  limited,  so  that,  while  he  really  aims  at  what 
is  good  he  constantly  does  something  less  than  good,  only 


IV.]      Sin  not  d?ie  to  otcr  limited  knowledge. 

from  want  of  that  enlarged  information  which  is  denied 
him  by  the  limited  conditions  of  his  being.  And  he  is 
also  tied  down  to  a  gross  material  body,  filled  with  sensual 
impulses  and  instincts,  which  control  and  overmaster  his 
loftier  aspirations.  His  sensuous  nature  necessarily  and 
perpetually  depresses  the  level  of  his  thought  and  action ; 
and  in  this  depression,  thus  physically  necessitated,  from 
the  line  of  his  ideal  attainments  to  that  of  his  actual 
attainments,  consists  his  sin. 

Now,  so  far  is  sin  from  being  the  product  of  im- 
perfect knowledge,  that  the  imperfection  of  man's  know- 
ledge is  the  measure  of  his  innocence.  Knowledge  is 
essential  to  responsibility;  the  latter  can  only  exist  in 
the  ratio  of  the  former.  The  lower  creatures  cannot 
sin  against  the  knowledge  which  we  have,  but  which 
they  do  not  possess :  we  cannot  sin  against  a  higher 
knowledge  than  that  which  has  been  vouchsafed  to  us. 
But  we  know  enough  to  have  enormous  opportunities  for 
sin  open  to  us ;  and  when  we  do  sin,  our  consciences  do 
not  whisper  that  had  we  known  more  we  might  have  been 
..  nocent  still.  Omniscience  is  not  a  condition  of  virtue; 
philosophers  are  not  always  saints,  nor  little  children 
always  criminals.  Nor  is  sin  accurately  attributed  to  the 
necessary  action  of  our  sensuous  nature.  It  is  not,  by  any 
means,  universally  or  even  generally  the  product  of  in- 
surgent senses.  Euinous  as  are  the  sins  for  which  per- 
verted sensual  instincts  furnish  the  material,  there  are 
many  sins  of  the  darkest  type  which  have  nothing  to  do 


138   Oiu^  sensiioiLs  natttre  7iot  the  so2Lrce  of  sin.  [Lect. 

witli  sense.  "We  should  be  just  as  capable  of  envy  and 
hatred,  of  ambition  and  pride,  of  untruthfulness,  or  the 
desire  to  destroy  a  fellow-creature,  if  we  had  no  bodies 
at  all.  Sin  then,  as  such,  is  not  the  irrepressible  product 
of  a  sensuous  body ;  nor  is  it  the  imperfection  of  moral  or 
spiritual  effort  which  alliance  to  such  a  body  is  thought 
of  necessity  to  imply.  In  order  to  practise  virtue,  it  is 
indeed  often  necessary,  with  the  Apostle,  to  keep  under 
our  body  and  bring  it  into  subjection ;  ^  but  the  body  does 
not  exert  any  irresistible  power  of  depression  over  the 
higher  instincts  of  the  soul,  or  it  would  be  useless  to 
struggle  against  it.  The  seat  of  sin  is  in  the  will,  whether 
sin  be  chieily  spiritual  or  sensual;  the  body  merely 
furnishes  one  of  the  spheres  wherein  temptation  may  be 
found  and  sin  is  possible ;  and  sin  is  a  much  graver  thing 
than  any  failure  to  attain  ideal  goodness  wdiich  arises  from 
our  being  weighted  with  a  body  of  sense.  If  sin  were  only 
inevitable  weakness ;  if  it  were  nothing  more  serious  than 
a  lowly  condition  in  the  scale  of  being  resulting  from 
man's  physical  circumstances  ;  the  conscience  of  man  would 
no  more  torture  him  on  account  of  it  than  the  conscience 
of  the  cripple  or  the  blind  accuses  him  of  his  misfortune. 
Sin  differs  from  virtue  not  as  a  flower  which  has  been 
frostbitten  differs  from  a  flower  which  has  escaped  the 
frost,  but  as  a  self-made  devil  differs  from  an  angel ;  and 
the  body  can  no  more  fetter  the  will  of  the  saint  than  the 
triumph  of  its  rebellious  senses  can  be  held  to  measure  or 
diminish  the  responsibility  of  the  sinner. 
1 1  Cor.  ix.  27. 


IV.]        Sin  not  simply  a  failu7'e  to  be  good,        139 

So  faint  an  estimate  of  evil  may  help  ns  to  create  a 
morality  that  shall  accommodate  itself  to  human  life  as  it 
actually  is.  It  will  not  furnish  us  for  long  with  a  standard 
of  moral  truth  which  will  remind  us  of  what  our  life  actually 
is  not.  It  may  recommend  itself  at  once,  and  very  per- 
suasively, to  our  self-love.  It  were  pleasant  to  think,  if 
we  could  think,  that  we  have  never  been  in  the  terrible 
predicament  of  opposing  and  refusing  a  known  standard 
of  goodness;  that,  at  the  worst,  we* are  only  pardonable 
and  even  interesting  instances  of  failure  to  be  all  that  we 
conceivably  might  have  been.  To  see  in  evil  nothing 
beyond  the  result  of  man's  finite  nature;  to  see  in  it  a 
privation  only  and  not  a  contradiction  of  good,  is  undoubt- 
edly calculated  to  put  us  all  on  very  good  terms  with  our- 
selves. But  is  any  theory  of  the  kind  consistent  with  the 
most  rudimentary  idea  of  evil  ?  Surely  our  consciences 
teU  us  that  evil  is  a  great  deal  more  than  a  maimed  effort 
at  goodness,  more  than  a  privation  of  goodness  which 
might  be  but  is  not.  Evil  and  good  are  not,  so  to  put  it, 
upon  the  same  line  of  advance,  with  only  this  difference, 
that  while  goodness  is  success,  evil  is  failure.  If,  for 
instance,  I  tell  a  very  deliberate  lie,  with  a  view  to  getting 
possession  of  a  sum  of  money  by  doing  so,  I  surely  do 
something  more  than  fail  to  reach  an  ideal  of  perfect 
trutlifulness.  I  move  very  deliberately  in  an  opposite 
direction  to  that  of  truth ;  I  do  not  come  short  of  it ;  I 
contradict  and  trample  it  under  foot.  If  nobody  ever  told 
a  lie  without  wishing  to  tell  the  truth,  while  yet  he  failed. 


140         The  idea  of  sin  in  Holy  Scriptu7^e.     [Lect. 

from  defective  knowledge,  to  do  so  perfectly,  this  theory 
of  evil  as  the  symptom  of  man's  finite  nature  might  at  least 
claim  a  hearing.  As  it  is,  the  real  facts  of  every  human 
conscience  are  against  it. 

And  accordingly  Holy  Scripture  speaks  of  sin  in  terms 
which  are  utterly  at  variance  with  any  such  estimate  of 
moral  evil  as  this.  It  speaks  of  "  sin  having  dominion  over- 
us/'^  and  of  the  justified  being  "  dead  unto  sin;"-  but  we 
are  not  ruled  by  imperfect  forms  of  goodness,  nor  do  we 
"  die  "  to  moral  efforts  which  were  only  less  successful  than 
our  present  ones.  It  speaks  of  sin  as  a  service,  the  wages 
of  which  is  death  ;^  as  a  defilement  from  which  w^e  must  be 
cleansed  and  washed;*  as  a  bondage  from  which  Christ 
makes  us  free.^  There  is,  it  appears,  a  law  of  sin  in  our 
members,  to  which  we  maybe  brought  into  captivity;^  and 
sin  it  is  which  constitutes  the  sting  of  death, '^  and  which 
in  its  deliberate  and  emphatic  form  is  the  death  of  the  soul.^ 
How  is  all  this  language,  which  presupposes  an  energetic 
contradiction  to  exist  between  sin  and  holiness,  to  be 
reconciled  with  any  representation  of  sin  as  being  merely 
imperfection,  whether  of  knowledge  or  of  moral  force  ?  As 
if  there  w^ere  no  sins  except  those  of  negligence  and  omis- 
sion, no  sins  of  set  purpose  to  do  evil;  as  if  there  were  no 
such  thing  as  knowing  evil  to  be  evil,  and  dehberately 
embracing  it!^ 

1  Rom.  vi.  14.  2  jjom  ^j  2.  »  p^^j^.  vi.  23  ;  cf.  1  S.  John  iii.  8. 

*  Ps.  li.  2-7  ;  Isa.  i.  16  ;  Jerem.  iv.  14  ;  Acts  xxii.  16  ;  1  Cor.  vi.  11 ;  Rev. 
i.  5 ;  Rev.  vii.  14. 

"  Rom.  vi.  16-22.  ^  poj^.  vii.  23.  ^  1  Cor.  xv.  56. 

«  1  S.  John  V.  16.  »  Rom.  i.  32. 


lY.]  Is  sin  a  nee essaiy  foil  to  virticef  141 

Indeed,  to  represent  sin  as  something  due  to  tlie  original 
imperfection  of  human  nature  is  to  contradict  the  sanctity 
and  justice  of  God.  God  is  the  Maker  of  His  creatures ; 
and  if  creatures  are  imperfect,  as  compared  with  the  Creator, 
it  is  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  because  the  creature  is 
not  the  Creator.  But  this  inherent  or  metaphysical  imper- 
fection does  not  necessarily  imply  moral  imperfection :  had 
it  been  so,  God  coidd  not  have  created  at  all  without 
violating  His  own  attributes.  And  certainly,  if  man  only 
sins  because  his  views  of  absolute  good  are  limited,  and  his 
higher  aspirations  weighed  down  by  the  body  of  sense 
which  encompasses  him,  the  author  of  that  intellectual 
finiteness  and  of  that  sensual  frame  is  the  author  of  man's 
sin;  and  God,  in  creating,  forfeits  His  sanctity,  and  in  for- 
feiting His  sanctity  ceases  to  be  the  object  of  religion. 

This  conclusion,  indeed,  is  not  declined  by  the  Pantheistic 
philosophy,  and  by  that  large  body  of  thought  in  our  day, 
which  is  profoundly,  because  for  the  most  part  unconsciously, 
moulded  by  it.  Sin,  we  are  told,  like  everything  else,  is 
really  due  to  the  Divine  activity;  but,  then,  sin  is  not  with- 
out its  uses — I  had  almost  said,  its  merits.  It  is,  forsooth, 
the  stimulant  and  condition  of  goodness.  As  in  the  world 
of  Heo-elian  thou^^ht,  truth,  we  are  told,  is  not  to  be  looked 
for  in  any  single  and  direct  affirmations,  but  only  as  the 
term  of  a  series  of  contradictions,  which  not  only  may  be 
true  together,  but  are  together  necessary  to  express  the  full 
truth;  so  it  has  been  asserted,  that  in  the  moral  sphere  there 
is  a  somewhat  similar  law  of  contradictories;  that  it  is  as 


142  Evil  not  thei^efore good^becaitse  overruled.  [Lect. 

unphilosopliical  to  find  fault  with  what  is  vulgarly  described 
as  sin,  as  it  is  to  keep  no  terms  with  what  is  coarsely  described 
as  falsehood.  Sin  is  the  necessary  foil  to  goodness:  without 
sin  goodness  would  never  be  roused  into  active  life.  Con- 
tradiction is  a  condition  of  moral  life:  goodness  is  not 
tranquil  conformity  to  law,  but  energetic  struggle  against 
that  which  contradicts  it,  and  which  by  contradicting  it 
makes  it  what  it  is.  "  Just  as  nature  is  made  up  of  con- 
trasts, and  in  it  we  see  light  opposed  to  darkness,  and  heat 
to  cold,  and  expansion  to  concentration,  and  pleasure  to 
pain,  and  health  to  sickness, — even  so  does  the  true  life  of 
the  human  soul  emerge  from  deep  contrasts ;  it  is  only 
developed  by  the  encounter  between  truth  and  falsehood, 
between  good  and  evil."  ..."  Evil  is  thus  a  condition, 
almost  an  ingredient  of  good.  Goodness  would  slumber  in 
itself,  it  would  be  without  the  necessary  impulse  to  exertion, 
unless  it  were  constantly  kept  on  the  alert  by  the  antago- 
nistic energies  and  excesses  of  evil."  ^ 

This  singular  travestie  of  the  account  which  the  revela- 
tion has  given  of  the  permission  of  moral  evil  in  the  world, 
involves  a  fallacy  of  confusion.  It  confounds  the  good 
ends  which  evil,  against  its  nature,  may  subserve  in  the 
purposes  of  an  overruling  Providence,  with  the  inherent 
qualities  of  evil  itself.  Certainly  it  is  better  for  the 
health  of  the  body  that  latent  disease  should  shew  itself 
in  pronounced  illness;  and  when  such  illness  is  over, 
a  patient  may  be  all  the  stronger  and  better  for  having 

^  Cf.  quot.  by  Klotz,  in  his  art.  Slinde. 


lY.]  Goodness  independent  of  evil.  143 

been  ill.  But  for  all  that,  disease  is  disease,  and  not  a 
variegated  form  of  health;  and  a  man  in  wliom  disease 
had  never  been  latent,  and  whose  constitution  had  been 
even  monotonously  free  from  its  assaults,  will  be,  at  least, 
as  well  as  another  who  may  have  happily  survived  a  scarlet 
fever.  What  God  in  His  loving  Omnipotence  may  make 
evil  do  in  spite  of  its  nature  is  one  thing;  what  it  is  in  itself 
is  another.  Yice  is  not  a  necessary  aliment,  it  is  not  even 
a  necessary  foil  to  virtue.  The  devil  is  not  necessary  to 
the  existence  of  God ;  and  goodness  does  not  depend  either 
for  its  beauty  or  its  strength  upon  the  antagonistic  efforts 
of  sin.  If  it  were  so,  we  should  at  once  reach  the  practical 
conclusion  of  the  Materialistic  philosophy,  which  denies  the 
existence  of  any  free  will  in  man  whatever,  and  sees  in  all 
moral  actions,  whatever  their  colouring,  the  inevitable 
result  of  antecedents  which  create  them,  by  as  necessary  a 
law  as  any  which  rules  the  world  of  matter.  Upon  Mate- 
rialistic principles,  the  murderer  Traupmann  ouglit  never 
to  have  been  executed:  he  was  no  more  responsible  for  his 
atrocities  than  a  flash  of  lightning  or  a  wave  would  be  for 
the  destruction  of  a  human  life.  But  upon  the  principles 
of  the  aesthetic  Pantheism,  it  might  even  have  been  ques- 
tioned whether  French  society  did  not  on  the  whole  gain 
by  his  horrible  activity:  and  whether  one  who  had  done 
so  much  to  exhibit  the  virtue  of  respect  for  human  life  in 
high  rslief,  by  so  emphatically  contradicting  it,  was  not,  in 
consideration  of  his  services,  entitled  to  receive  some  higher 
and  more  substantial  reward  than  a  reprieve  of  the  penalty 
which  he  actually  suffered. 


144      Evil,  if  necessary,  must  be  condo7ied,     [Lect. 

Indeed,  it  is  here  that  we  see  how  irreconcileable  any  such 
theory  is  with  the  plainest  instincts  of  a  healthy  conscience. 
If  evil  is  necessary  to  the  existence  of  good,  why  should 
conscience  condemn  evil?  How  can  conscience  condemn 
that  which  is  necessary  to  the  good  which  it  approves? 
How,  if  we  are  to  pursue  this  line  of  thought,  can  we  ulti- 
mately avoid  acquiescing  in  a  theory  which,  denying  all 
distinctions  of  right  and  wrong  as  of  the  nature  of  baseless 
prejudice,  sees  in  evil,  as  in  good,  only  an  energetic  mani- 
festation of  life  apart  from  any  moral  colouring  whatever? 
A  last  protest  may  indeed  be  made  to  the  effect  that  man's 
business  is  to  contradict  the  metaphysical  necessity  for  evil 
by  the  moral  demand  that  it  should  be  resisted.  But  this 
very  demand,  if  it  is  to  be  enforced,  must  proceed  upon  the 
serious  conviction  that  moral  evil  is  evil;  that  it  is  a  some- 
thing which  need  not  be;  and  that  if  we  will,  we  are  indi- 
vidually and  perfectly  free  to  accept  or  to  reject  it. 

Theories  such  as  these  are  in  truth  expedients  for  repre- 
senting sin  as  being  less  serious  than  it  is;  for  softening 
the  repulsive  contrasts  which  it  presents  to  holiness;  for 
securing  to  it  a  right  to  feel  at  home  in  human  conduct 
and  in  the  human  soul.  Every  such  theory  attempts  to 
put  forth  a  more  or  less  disguised  justification  and  apology 
on  behalf  of  sin,  at  the  bar  of  intellect,  that  sin  may,  if 
possible,  be  received  without  dishonour,  if  it  be  not  wel- 
comed at  the  court  of  conscience.  But  conscience,  when  she 
is  not  benumbed  or  asleep,  must  protest  implacably  against 
these  attempts  to  make  sin  respectable.      She  can  see  in 


IV.]  Doctrine  of  Tzuo  Pj^inciples,  145 

tliem  only  so  many  invitations  addressed  to  the  single  sonl, 
bidding  it  look  tolerantly  or  fondly  on  the  snre  instrnment 
of  its  degradation  and  rnin;  so  many  invitations  addressed 
to  human  society,  bidding  it  recognize  or  welcome  the  foe 
who  is  sworn  to  impede  and  to  destroy  the  indispensable 
conditions  of  its  coherence  and  progress. 

2.  It  has  indeed  been  the  dread  of  softening  down  the 
idea  of  evil  which  has  led  the  human  conscience  in  very 
early  ages  to  tamper  with  the  idea  of  God.  The  instinctive 
recoil  from  the  one  error  has  plunged  it  into  the  other. 
The  physical  evil  of "  pain,  of  disease,  of  death,  inflicts 
itself  upon  the  senses;  and  conscience  accounts  for  physical 
evil  by  tracing  it  to  moral  evil.  Conscience  cannot  deny 
the  malignity  of  moral  evil  without  dethroning  herself. 
But  why  should  moral  evil  exist  ?  The  All-Holy  could  not 
have  created  it:  to  have  done  so  would  have  been  to  cease 
to  be  Himself.  But  why  did  He  permit  it  ?  And  who  gave 
it  being,  that  He  should  permit  it? 

In  ages  and  civilizations  when  the  idea  of  God  was  im- 
perfect or  impoverished,  men  accounted  for  the  existence 
of  evil  by  ascribing  it  to  a  being  or  principle,  coeval  with 
God,  independent  of  Him,  and  of  course  opposed  to  Him. 
Whether  this  evil  was  supposed  to  be  matter  out  of  which 
the  Good  God  had  fashioned  the  world,  or  whether  it  was 
conceived  of  as  something  more  sjpiritual,  the  object  and 
origin  of  the  system  was  identical.  It  was  an  effort  to 
account  for  the  great  perplexing  mystery — the  existence 
of  evil.     It  is  impossible,  argued  these  ancient  thinkers, 

L 


146  Ormuzd  a7id  Ahrimaii.  [Lect. 

that  moral  life  and  death,  that  good  and  evil,  can  flow  from 

a  single  sonrce.    It  is  impossible  that  a  Holy  God  can  have 

been  the  author  of  evil.     Evil,  then,  must  be  referred  to 

some  other  origin:  it  must  have  had  an  author  of  its  own. 

So  far  we  cannot  but  follow;  but  then  the  argument  appeals, 

in  order  to  sustain  its  own  false  inference,  to  the  gigantic 

proportions  which  evil  has  actually  assumed.     Considering 

how  world-wide  and  imperial  is  the  sway  of  evil,  must  not 

evil,  it  asks,  be  referred  to  some  person,  principle,  force,  or 

tendency,  higher  and  older  than  created  things;  to  some 

almighty  source,  existing  side  by  side  with  the  Author  and 

Source  of  goodness,  in  eternal  contradiction  to  His  mind 

and  work? 

If  we  take  the  ancient  Parsee  doctrine  as  a  sample,  we 

find,  in  the  lines  of  the  Bundehesch,  the  good  and  evil 

principles — Ormuzd  and  Ahriman — contrasted  as  follows: — 

"  Ormuzd  is  the  hght; 
This  Hght  is  without  beginning; 
Ormuzd  is  on  high, 
Ormuzd  is  Holy, 
Ormuzd  hath  all  knowledge." 

On  the  other  hand — 

"Ahriman  is  in  darkness; 
This  darkness  is  without  beginning; 
Ahriman  is  in  the  depths; 
Ahriman  delightetli  in  strife; 
Ahriman  hath  only  a  derived  knowledge."^ 

Here,  while  Ahriman   is  in  respect  of  knowledge   the 
inferior  of   Ormuzd,   they  are  represented   as  coeval;  al- 

^  Ahardanesch,  qu.  by  Hanneberg  from  Jos.  Miiller,  art.  Parsismus. 


IV.]  Anti-dualism  of  Isaiah.  147 

tliougli  the  modern  Parsees,  especially  when  in  conflict 
with  Christianity,  have  tended,  by  exalting  Ornmzd  alone, 
to  approach  more  and  more  closely  to  a  practical  Monothe- 
ism.^ But  there  is  no  real  question  as  to  the  practical 
Dualism  of  the  earlier  doctrine,  which  prevailed  in  Persia 
at  least  from  the  date  of  Darius  Hystaspes  to  that  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  and  again  after  the  fall  of  the 
Parthian  dynasty, — the  doctrine  which  is  confronted  in  the 
pages  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  In  Isaiah,  the  God  of 
Israel  proclaims — 

"  I  am  the  Lord, 
And  there  is  none  else : 

There  is  no  God  beside  Me 

I  form  the  hght  and  create  darkness; 
I  make  peace  and  create  evil; 
I  the  Lord  do  all  these  things."^ 

Here  we  have  a  revelation  probably  designed  to  protect 

the  faith  of  Israel  ac^ainst  the  Dualistic  influences  to  which 

it  would  be  exposed  during  the  later  period  of  the  Captivity. 

The  Eternal  Lord  of  Heaven  was  much  more  ancient  than 

this  antagonism  of  good  and  evil  which  meets  men's  eyes 

in  the  world,  and  which  suggested  the  faith  from  which 

was   evolved  the   Zendavesta.      The  evil   x^rinciple  itself 

was  in  this  sense  only  created  by  Him,  that  He  had  formed 

the  wills  which,  in  their  perverted  freedom,  gave  it  birth. 

"  I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else." 

1  Cf.  Hanneberg,  who  quotes  Wilson,  "  The  Parsee  Keligion,"  Bombay, 
1843,  p.  107.  It  would  seem  that  the  superiority  of  Ormuzd  was  never 
supposed  to  imply  his  power  of  preventing  the  birth  of  Ahriman  or  of 
annihilating  him. 

2  Isa.  xlv.  5,  6,  7. 


148  Dicalism  is,  in  fact,  Atheism.         [Lect. 

In  Cliristiau  times  we  find  S.  Paul  insisting  upon  the 
truism,  as  it  appears  to  us,  tliat  "  every  creature  of  God  is 
good,  and  nothing  to  be  despised,"  ^  as  a  reason  for  reject- 
ing certain  distinctions  of  food  whicli  were  insisted  on  by 
some  ancient  ascetics  at  Ephesus.  But  here  he  is  really 
combating  another  form  of  the  doctrine  of  Two  Principles ; 
which  held  matter  to  be  the  seat  and  source  of  evil,  and 
certain  kinds  of  food  to  be  peculiarly  representative  of  the 
grossness  of  matter.  Wlien  Augustine,  in  a  later  age,  as  a 
still  unconverted  young  man,  giving  the  freest  license  both 
to  sensual  passions  and  to  intellectual  enterprise,  was 
casting  about  for  a  theory  which  would  at  once  countenance 
his  excesses,  and  furnish  him  with  a  working  philosophical 
explanation  of  the  universe,  he  found  it  in  Manicheeism. 
Manicheeism  was  the  Dualism  which  had  acquired  a 
Christian  flavour  by  coming  into  contact  with  Christianity ; 
and  we  may  form  some  idea  of  the  strength  and  fascina- 
tion of  the  theory,  by  observing  how  tenacious  was  its  hold 
upon  the  strong  and  beautiful  mind  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Fathers,  even  when  the  full  light  of  Catholic  truth  was 
already  breaking  upon  him. 

Isaiah's  words  wHl  have  already  suggested  that  seriously 
to  believe  in  two  eternal  principles  is  fatal  to  serious  belief 
in  the  existence  of  God.  God  is  the  one  Self-existent 
Being ;  the  Maker  of  all  things,  visible  and  invisible.  To 
assert  that  another — whether  essence,  person,  or  even 
matter — existed  eternally  side  by  side  with  God,  is  to  deny 

1  1  Tim.  iv.  4. 


IV.]      The  idea  of  evil  impaired  by  Dualism.      149 

God's  first  and  necessary  prerogatwe,  as  the  Alone  Eternal, 
and  Self-existent.  If  God  is  to  be  screened  in  human 
thought  from  the  blasphemy  which  would  credit  Him 
with  the  origination  of  evil,  it  must  be  by  some  doctrine 
which,  unlike  Dualism,  does  not  virtually  annihilate  Him 
in  order  to  do  so. 

But  the  doctrine  of  Two  Principles  does  not  succeed  even 
in  its  main  object,  namely,  the  protection  and  affirmation 
of  the  unimpaired  idea  of  evil  itself.  Evil  is,  in  its  quaintly 
perverted  estimate,  rather  a  gTowth  of  nature  than  the  free 
product  of  a  created  will :  evil  has  a  positive  substance  of 
its  own.  Evil  must  therefore  be  conquered  by  a  physical 
rather  than  a  spiritual  or  moral  treatment.  This  would 
seem  to  have  been  the  idea  of  these  mistaken  ascetics 
at  Colossae,  ^  whom  S.  Paul  observed  and  reproved.  And  the 
error  leads  to  consequences  beyond  itself.  If  evil  is 
physical,  there  is  no  more  reason  for  distress  at  a  habit 
of  lying,  than  at  tuberculation  of  the  lungs.  If  sin  is 
physical,  remedies  may  or  may  not  succeed ;  and  a  moral 
struggle  is  on  the  whole  less  reasonable  than  a  torpid 
resignation. 

At  any  rate,  it  may  be  said,  we  of  this  generation  are 
not  Dualists :  and  what  good  is  to  be  done  by  disinterring 
and  gibbeting  the  corpses  of  ancient  errors  ?  But  let  us 
recollect  that  when  error  is  buried  as  a  formal  theory,  it 
often  leaves  behind  it  a  miasma  which  infects  the  world 
of  thought  for  many  a  succeeding  generation.  A¥e  practi- 
1  Col.  ii.  22,  20. 


150  Dicalisin  in  eveiyday  life.  [Lect. 

cally  affirm  a  second  evil  principle  in  the  universe  when 
we  acquiesce  in  the  notion  that  evil  in  ourselves  or  in 
others,  in  individuals  or  in  societies,  is  invincible.  We  do 
not  tallv  of  a  second  principle ;  we  assume  one.  We 
assume  not  merely  a  powerful  but  an  unconquerable  devil, 
when  we  despair  of  expelling,  by  God's  grace,  that  which 
is  evil  in  ourselves  or  in  others.  We  bow,  as  we  say,  to 
the  inevitable ;  we  recognize  such  and  such  tendencies  of 
the  times.  They  are  perhaps  at  issue  with  what  we  know 
to  be  right.  But  there  they  are ;  the  current  flows  all  one 
way  and  with  increasing  strength,  and  we  say  that  it  is 
useless  to  attempt  to  make  head  against  it.  Instead  of  over- 
coming evil  with  good,  like  the  Apostle,  we  philosophically 
resign  ourselves  to  being  overcome  with  evil.  But  our 
notion  of  the  invincibility  of  sin  and  error  is  at  issue  with 
our  still  professed  faith  in  the  one  All-Powerful  and  Holy 
God.  Our  faint-heartedness,  our  despair,  our  abject  fatalism 
in  presence  of  evil,  within  and  around  us,  is  properly  a 
relic  of  the  old  Dualistic  leaven,  which  sees  in  evil  the 
resistless  play,  the  unconquerable  energy  of  an  eternal 
principle ;  which  refers  it  to  a  power  that,  could  it  have 
existed,  would  have  made  God  impossible. 

No.  There  must  be  no  tampering  with  the  idea  and 
character  of  God ;  with  His  Unity,  with  His  Omnipotence, 
with  His  Sanctity.  To  deny  these  is  to  destroy,  in  human 
thought,  the  ascertained  object  of  religion.  If  there  is  one 
God,  All-powerful  and  moral,  and  if  moral  evil  is  a  fact  in 
the  universe,  the  existence  and  nature  of  moral  evil  must 


lY.]  Desire  the  i^aw  matej^ial  of  sin.  151 

be  in  some  way  accounted  for  by  serious  Theists,  if  it  can 
be  accounted  for  at  all,  without  impugning  tlie  morality 
and  tlie  Omnipotence  of  God. 


11. 


Wliat,  then,  is  sin  in  itself?  What  representation  of 
it  will  neither  obliterate  the  lines  of  moral  truth,  nor  do 
injustice  to  the  Sanctity  or  the  Omnipotence  of  God  ? 

S.  James,  in  the  passage  which  is  before  us,  furnishes 
us  with  materials  for  answering  this  question.  He  says 
that  desire  when  it  hath  conceived  brinsjeth  forth  sin.  He 
thus  places  the  origin  of  moral  evil  in  the  created  will,  of 
which  desire  is  the  moral  ingredient.  Desire  is,  indeed, 
the  raw  material  of  moral  life.  It  is  the  plastic  force 
which  may  become,  under  different  circumstances,  either 
sanctity  or  sin :  and  thus  S.  Augustine  has  defined 
virtue  as  "  love  or  desire  ruled  by  true  order."  Desire  is 
part  of  the  original  outfit  of  every  human  being;  a 
sympathetic  force  by  which  the  various  instincts  and 
faculties  of  our  nature  are  drawn  towards  a  something 
external  to  itself  What  is  that  something?  In  man's 
unfallen  state  of  old,  and  in  his  state  of  perfectly  restored 
sanctity  hereafter,  God  is  the  true  object  of  all  human 
desires :  man  desires  God  for  His  own  sake,  and  all  created 
objects  only  for  the  sake  of  God.     In  the  original  design 


152  SclfisJmess  at  the  root  of  sin.  [Lect. 

of  God,  desire  in  the  moral  world  corresponds  to  the  law  of 
attraction  in  the  physical ;  and  the  perfected  saint,  in  all 
the  activity  of  his  moral  and  intellectual  life,  moves 
around  the  great  Centre  of  his  adoration  with  an  undeviat- 
ing  regularity,  such  as  is  that  of  the  planet  circling  in 
its  orbit  around  its  parent  sun.  But  the  planet  cannot 
modify  or  weaken  the  attraction  which  governs  it.  It 
cannot  plunge  anarchically  through  space,  seeking  a  place 
in  some  other  system  where  it  may  move  around  some 
other  sun,  or  itself  become  the  centre  of  other  satellites ; 
whereas  desire,  being  moral,  does  not  bind  free  agents  to 
loyal  revolutions  around  their  true  Centre  by  any  such 
necessity.  Man  may  at  his  option  cease  to  desire  God :  he 
may,  in  the  stead  of  God,  desire  one  of  God's  creatures  for 
its  own  sake,  and  with  the  A^ehemence  of  an  absorbing 
passion.  1  And  since  no  other  creature  can  really  take 
God's  place,  man  thus  comes  to  make  himself  his  own 
centre ;  to  view  all  persons  and  events  relatively  to  him- 
self;  to  think  of  God,  if  at  all,  as  only  one  of  the  points 
on  the  circumference  of  his  own  petty  and  fictitious 
universe.  Wlien  desire  is  thus  perverted,  by  being  wedded 
to  the  things  of  time  and  sense,  as  if  they  could  really 
satisfy  the  yearnings  of  the  soul,  it  "  bringeth  forth  sin." 
Like  an  atmosphere  charged  with  infection,  desire  spent 
upon  created  things  is  pregnant  with  sin:  it  implies 
that  idolatrous  surrender  of  self  to  creatures,  that  passionate 
claim  upon  creatures  on  behalf  of  self,  which  in  the  end 

1  S.  John  ii.  17,  e-KiBvyla  tov  Kdafxov.     Tit.  ii.  12;  Rom.  vii.  7,  8. 


lY.]  Other  aspects  of  an  act  of  sin,  153 

breaks  tlie  bond  between  God  and  the  soul.^  And  lience 
an  act,  or  series  of  acts,  whether  of  thought,  or  w^ord,  or 
deed,  to  which  in  its  freedom  the  will  consents,  and  which 
contradict  the  moral  order  of  the  universe. 

And  this  is  sin.  Sin,  to  be  complete,  need  not  become 
speech  or  action :  a  formed  desire,  deliberately  assented  to 
by  the  will,  constitutes  sin.  "  He  that  looketh  on  a 
woman,"  says  om^  Lord,  "  to  desire  her,  hath  committed 
adultery  with  her  already  in  his  heart."  ^  Indeed,  it  is 
the  internal  act,  and  not  the  material  product  of  the  act, 
which  is  chiefly  of  moral  importance.  Wliat  is  the  precise 
form  or  turn  of  the  inward  act  ?  Here  the  beautiful  and 
suggestive  words,  which  are  used  to  express  the  idea 
of  sin  in  the  sacred  language,  but  Avhich  are  untranslate- 
able  into  our  clumsier  Western  tongue,  will  help  us.  In 
the  fifty-first  Psalm,  for  instance,  besides  the  generic 
expression  for  evil,^  there  are  three  words  which  describe 
different  aspects  of  the  idea  of  sin.  Of  these,  one  implies 
that  God's  will  being  the  aim  which  man  rightly  pursues, 
sin  is  a  missing  his  true  goal  in  life.*     A  second  regards 

^  This  aspect  of  sin  has  been  well  re -stated  in  Jul.  Miiller's  Lehr.  v.  d. 
Sunde,  i.  i.  c.  3. 
-  S.  Matt.  V.  28. 
^  y"l,  V.  6,  broadly  opposed  to  ^^[^ — Gen,  xxiv.  50;  Levit.  xxvii.  10.     In 

a  more  emphatic   moral  sense,    Prov.  viii.  13;    Ps.  vii.  10.      j;j^"i  means 

originally  to  be  noisy,  tempestuous;  the  transition  to  the  idea  of  moral 
disorder  appears  in  yy-i,  which  is  primarily  used  of  breaking  in  pieces  with 

a  crash,  Job  xxxiv.  24,  Ps.  ii.  9 ;  then  of  evil  generally,  and  finally,  in  the 
Hiphil  especially,  of  evil  action. — J,  Mtiller,  Lehr.  v.  d.  Siinde,  i.  i.  c.  2. 

*  i<tDn?  V,  5.     The  primary  idea  seems  to  be  that  of  stumbling  on  the  way 
to  a  goal — Prov.  xix.  2 ;  in  which  is  implied  the  missing  of  the  object  of 


154  Sin  contradicts  Eternal  Law,  [Lect. 

sin  as  a  twisting  or  perversion  of  tlie  will  from  tlie  right 
way.^  A  third  brands  it  as  rebellious  transgression  of 
Divine  law,"  of  a  covenant  with  God,  of  the  law  w^hich 
man  is  bound  to  obey.  The  New  Testament  ex]Dressions 
substantially  correspond ;  and  they  have  tliis  in  common. 
Sin  is  an  offence  against  moral  truth ;  known,  and  contra- 
dicted although  known.  "  Sin,"  says  S.  Augustine,  "  is 
something  said  or  done  or  desired  in  contradiction  to  the 
Eternal  Law." 

Why  the  "  Eternal "  Law  ?  This  question  can  only  be 
answered  when  we  reflect  on  the  nature  of  moral  truth. 
Moral  truth  is  not  like  the  laws  and  facts  of  the  physical 
world ;  it  is  not  something  which  might  have  been  other- 
wise than  as  it  is,  had  God  so  willed.  God  was  under  no 
necessity  to  make  either  one  or  a  million  suns  or  planets, 
or  to  furnish  them  with  a  particular  temperature  and 
particular  inhabitants.  Why  not  ?  Because  there  was 
nothing  in  His  necessary  nature  which  constrained  Him  to 
do  so.  He  created  in  His  freedom:  He  created  as  He 
created  in  His  freedom :  He  mi^ht  have  created  otherwise : 
He  was  free  not  to  have  created  at  all.  But  could  God 
ever  have  sanctioned  you  or  me  in  saying  that  that  which 

search — Pro  v.   viii.   36.       Not  that  '^\^T\  is  used  only  or  chiefly   of  sins  of 
infirmity,  whether  of  thought  or  will :  it  is  often  applied  to  the  gravest  sins, 
and  implies  that  which  is  characteristic  of  all  sin,  namely,  that  sin  is  a  moral 
action,  in  which  man  misses  the  aim  for  which  he  was  created  by  God. 
^  1*"!^'  ^-  ^'  fj^o^  riiyj  to  be  bent  or  distorted,  implies  evil  considered  as 

'     T  T  r 

departure  from  man's  appointed  path. — Job.  xiii.  26  ;  Gen.  iv.  13. 

"  yK^S.  V.  5.     y^S  primarily  implies  faithless  rebellion  against  a  covenant, 

as  in  Isa.  i.  2,  xliii.  27  ;  Jerem.  iii.  13;  Amos  iv.  4;  1  Kings  xii.  19,  &c. 


I Y.]  and  therefo^^e  the  self-existent  natnre  of  God.  1 5  5 

we  know  to  be  false  is  true  ?  Why  not  ?  Because,  in 
sanctioning  us,  God  would  be  contradicting,  not  a  law 
which  He  might  have  made  other  than  as  He  has  made  it, 
but  a  necessary  truth  of  His  own  eternal  nature.  A  moral 
truth  is  like  a  mathematical  axiom ;  we  see  it  intuitively, 
and  we  do  this  because  it  is  necessarily  true,  and  as  being 
necessarily  true,  is  also  a  truth  of  God's  eternal,  nature. 
Can  any  reasonable  man,  for  instance,  without  destroying 
and  uprooting  the  very  constitution  of  the  mind  which 
God  has^  given  him,  conceive  that  under  any  j^ossible 
circumstances  it  could  ever  have  been  true  that  things  which 
are  equal  to  the  same  are  not  equal  to  one  another  ?  If 
not ;  then,  here  we  have  an  Eternal  Truth.  And  if  this 
be  an  Eternal  Truth,  it  is,  as  such,  a  real  part  of  God's 
Eternal  Nature ;  since  if  this  be  denied,  we  must  admit  that 
there  are  eternal  truths  independent  of  God,  and  existing 
eternally  apart  from  Him.  Would  not  this  in  effect  be  a 
denial  of  His  solitary  self-existence  ?  Either  God  does  not 
exist,  or  all  that  is  eternal  is  God.  But  if  pure  mathe- 
matical truth,  as  being  eternally  true,  be  thus  Divine,  moral 
truth  is  not  less  so.  If  we  cannot  believe  that  a  lie  was 
ever  right,  this  is  because  veracity  is  an  eternal  law  of 
the  Divine  nature ;  and  this  applies  to  the  whole  moral 
law,  which  is,  in  reality,  the  Divine  nature  formulated 
into  rules  which  suit  the  conditions  of  creaturely  existence. 
Thus,  given  the  parental  relationship,  it  never  could  have 
been  right  to  dishonour  a  fatlier  or  a  mother :  given  human 
life,  murder  could  never  have  been  other  than  criminal: 


156  Permission  of  evil  by  God.  [Lect. 

given  tlie  responsibility  of  transmitting  the  gift  of  life,  and 
adnltery,  which  trifles  with  that  responsibility,  could  never 
have  been  condoned :  given  the  idea  of  personal  rights,  of 
property,  and  stealing  is  necessarily  condemned.  And 
thus  it  is  that  sin  does  not  contradict  a  rule  which  God 
has  made  of  one  kind,  but  which  He  might  have  made  of 
another;  it  contradicts  a  rule  which,  in  its  principle,  is 
necessary  and  eternal ;  a  rule  which  does  not  depend  even 
upon  the  will  of  God  Himself,  since  it  embodies  and 
expresses  His  Divine  and  unchanging  Nature ;  a  rule  which 
accordingly  it  is  impossible  to  contradict,  without  running 
counter  to,  and,  so  far  as  we  can,  setting  at  naught  and 
destroying  the  very  being  and  nature  of  God  Himself. 
"  Against  Thee  only  have  I  sinned,"  is  the  voice  of  the 
sinner's  deepest  knowledge  of  himself.  And  it  was  this 
which  led  ancient  divines  to  say,  that  if,  im"  imijossibile, 
moral  evil  could  be  pushed  to  a  point  of  sufficient  exaggera- 
tion, it  would  annihilate  God.  By  this  saying,  they  ex- 
pressed the  vital  and  fundamental  antagonism  which 
exists  between  sin  and  the  Divine  natiu-e. 

N'ow,  such  an  account  of  moral  evil  cannot  be  said  to 
attenuate  its  malignity;  but  is  it  equally  carefid  of  the 
character  of  God  ?  If  evil  be  thus  antagonistic  to  God, 
how  can  God,  at  once  Almighty  and  All-holy,  have  allowed 
it  to  exist  ?  As  All-holy,  He  must  abhor  it ;  as  Almighty, 
He  surely  might  have  proscribed  what  He  abhors  ? 

The  answer  is,  that,  notwithstanding  the  inherent  quality 
of  evil,  the  possibility  of  its  existence  is,  so  far  as  we  can 


lY.]  Sin  an  abuse  of  God's  genei^osity.  157 

see,  a  needful  condition  of  true  moral  freedom.  God  miglit 
have  created  a  universe  ruled  from  first  to  last  by  physical 
la^Y,  and  so  incapable  of  deviation  from  tlie  true  rule  of  its 
action.  In  such  an  universe,  moral  evil  would  have  found 
no  place,  only  because  there  would  have  been  no  creatures 
properly  capable  of  moral  good.  Our  experience  tells  us 
that  God  has  not  chosen  to  stint  down  His  creative  activity 
to  these  proportions :  that  we  are  free  agents,  is  not  more 
a  matter  of  faith,  than  of  experience.  We  know  that  God  has 
created  beings  whose  higli  privilege  it  is  to  be  able  freely 
to  choose  Him  as  then  king,  as  the  accepted  Master  of  their 
whole  inward  life ;  but  if  this  privilege  is  to  be  real,  it  also 
carries  with  it  the  implied  power  of  rejecting  Him.  The 
alternative  risk  is  the  inevitable  condition  of  the  consum- 
mate honour:  it  is  actually  a  substantial  part  of  the 
honour.  A  moral  being  must  at  least  have  a  capacity  for 
disobedience  if  he  is  to  be  able  freely  to  obey. 

If,  then,  God  has  permitted  evil,  it  is  not  because  He  has 
ceased  to  be  Himself,  but  because  His  generosity  has  been 
abused.  The  source  and  root  of  moral  evil  is  to  be  found, 
not  in  the  Good  God,  but  in  the  abused  freedom  of  the 
creature,  whether  it  be  man  or  angel.  It  were  hard  indeed 
to  blaspheme  God  for  His  generosity ;  to  complain  that  He 
has  made  us  men  and  not  brutes  or  stones,  because,  for- 
sooth, as  a  race,  as  well  as  in  our  individual  lives,  we  have 
turned  His  bounty  against  Himself,  and  made  the  great- 
ness of  His  gift  the  measure  of  our  degradation. 

It  will  be  urfred  that  God  must  have   "foreseen"  the 


1 58  6".  P aid  and  S.AtLgzistine  on  permitted  sin.  [Lect. 

abuse  that  would  follow  upon  His  gift  of  freedom.  Cer- 
tainly. But  those  who  believe  in  His  wisdom  and  His 
love  at  all,  must  surely  believe  that  He  foresaw  much  else. 
They  will  believe  with  S.  Paul  that  if,  in  the  event,  sin 
has  abounded,  grace  has  much  more  abounded.^  They 
will  believe  with  S.  Auo-ustine  that  "  God  knew  it  to  be 
more  agreeable  to  His  almighty  goodness  even  to  bring 
good  out  of  evil,  than  not  to  permit  evil  to  exist."  ^  He 
might  be  trusted  to  strike  the  balance  of  advantages  between 
a  universe  ruled  only  by  physical  law  and  a  universe  so 
oj)en  to  the  possible  invasion  of  evil  as  to  be  darkened 
by  its  actual  presence  and  apparent  victory,  but  withal 
illuminated  by  the  remedy,  which,  in  the  long  run,  was 
to  be  much  more  than  equal  to  grappling  with  the  disease. 
Sin  might  be  tolerated,  if  the  Eternal  Son  was  to'redeem 
the  world.  We  know  at  any  rate  how  the  world's  Euler 
has  decided,  and  it  is  scarcely  reasonable  to  complain  that 
He  has  not  admitted  us  to  share  all  the  reasons  which 
governed  His  decision. 


III. 


Here,  then,  I  repeat  the  statement  with  which  I  began, 
that  if  a  religion  is  to  be  real  life-controlling  power,  it 

^  Rom.  V.  18,  19,  20,  ov  Be  iTrXeovaaep  rj  ajxaprla,  virepeirepi(Xcrev(Tev  r]  xctpis. 

2  De  Cor.  et  Gr.  c.  10.  Qui  creavit  omnia  bona  valde  et  mala  ex  bonis 
exoritura  esse  prasscivit ;  scivit  magis  ad  omnipotentissimam  suam  bonitatem 
pertinere  etiam  de  malis  benefacere  quam  mala  esse  non  sinere. 


lY.]  Religion  must  grapple  zuitk  sin.  159 

must  practically  recognize  the  fact  of  sin.  For,  since  sin 
provokes  God's  necessary  displeasure  on  the  one  hand,  and 
destroys  man's  power  and  even  his  wish  to  seek  God  on 
the  other,  its  direct  effect  is  to  break  up  that  bond  between 
God  and  man  in  which  religion  essentially  consists.  Eeli- 
gion,  therefore,  must  deal  with  sin,  not  as  if  it  were  making  a 
supererogatory  exertion,  but  as  a  condition  of  its  ow^n  exist- 
ence. It  must  remove  this  fatal  obstacle  to  its  proper  activity, 
if  it  is  to  exist  at  all.  Not  less  necessary  is  this  practical 
recognition  of  sin  by  religion,  if  religion  is  to  be  of  any 
real  benefit  to  society.  Go  out  into  the  streets  of  this 
great  capital,  or  read  the  daily  journals  which  register  the 
thought  and  incidents  of  our  national  life,  and  what  are 
the  two  spectres  which  meet  you  most  constantly  ?  Are 
they  not  suffering  and  crime  ?  And  what  is  suffering,  at 
least  in  the  main,  but  the  effect  and  shadow  of  sin ;  if  not 
of  the  sufferer's  own  sin,  yet  at  least  of  some  physical  or 
social  legacy  from  a  parent's  error  ?  What  is  crime  in  its 
most  venial  form,  but  sin,  prompted  by  suffering  and 
organized  and  solidified,  until  in  its  brutal  exuberance  it 
threatens  even  the  existence  of  society?  Has  religion 
nothing  to  say  to  the  moral  mischief  which  is  the  parent 
of  these  dark  phantoms  ?  Is  she  dreaming  ?  Is  she  power- 
less ?  Is  she  abandoning  her  high  hope  and  mission  of 
saving  humanity  from  its  worst  enemies  ? 

It  is  here  tliat  true  religion  parts  company  altogether 
with  certain  phases  of  so-termed  religious  thought,  which 
are  not  without  an  ambition  to  be  considered  at  least  the 


1 60  '' Religions'' philosophies zukick  ig?iore  sin.  [Lect. 

rudiments  of  some  future  religion  of  civilization.  Doubt- 
less they  embody  mucli  which  recommends  them,  at  any 
rate,  to  the  interest  of  educated  people.  They  are  philo- 
sophical; they  are  enterprising;  they  are  in  good  taste ;  they 
occupy  a  large  amount  of  attention  in  our  journals  and 
periodicals.  Nor  are  they  insensible  to  the  evil  of  crime, 
considered  as  a  cause  of  social  disturbance  and  danger. 
They  would  sometimes  deal  more  hardly  with  it  than 
would  be  morally  possible  for  men  who  had  a  deeper  insight 
into  the  relative  responsibility  of  criminals.  But  ignoring  the 
awful  yet  blessed  doctrines  of  Eedemption  and  Grace,  they 
have  no  remedy  for  sin ;  no  remedy,  that  is,  of  any  practical 
value ;  and  after  all,  sin  is  the  great  fact  with  which  they 
ought  to  deal.  Animated  speculation  on  religious  topics, 
careful  reproduction  of  the  external  drapery  of  scenes  in 
early  sacred  history,  quick  capacity  for  analyzing  and  deline- 
ating sentiment,  is  very  welcome  in  its  place.  It  has  indis- 
putably a  literary  value ;  but  it  does  not  help  us  to  confront 
the  stern  realities  of  this  human  world.  The  religion  which 
has  no  fixed  doctrines,  or  scarcely  any ;  no  code  of  absolute 
truth,  to  be  taught  and  suffered  for  at  all  costs ;  no  word  of 
heart-searching  warning,  and  yet  of  tenderest  consolation 
for  sinners, — is  not  really  a  religion  at  all.  It  is  at  best 
a  very  one-sided  philosophy.  Its  endeavours  to  deal  Avith 
the  great  heart-sores  of  humanity  remind  us  of  some  great 
physician  who,  at  the  bedside  of  a  patient,  writhing  in  pro- 
tracted agony,  should  airily  discuss  his  own  last  excursion 
in  the  Alps,  or  the  last  debate  in  Parliament,  or  at  best  the 


I^-]  yestis  teaches  the  nature  of  sin.  i6i 

most  recent  resolution  arrived  at  by  the  IM^etropolitan  Board 
of  Health. 

The  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  taught  by  His  Apostles, 
does  not  thus  trifle  with  the  seriousness  of  sin.  It  begins  by 
deepening  the  sense  of  sin,  the  perception  of  its  real  area 
and  power  in  human  life.  It  adds  poignancy  to  the  feeling  of 
shame  and  guilt  which  follows  upon  deliberate  sinful  action 
in  a  healthy  conscience.  By  the  Mosaic  laAV  there  w^as  a 
knowledge  of  sin.  ^  By  the  teaching  and  example  of  Jesus 
Christ  there  is  a  much  truer  and  deeper  knowledge  of  it.^ 
That  faultless  and  unapproached  Life  which  we  study  in  the 
pages  of  the  Gospels,  brought  home  to  the  heart  as  w^ell  as 
to  the  understanding  by  the  secret  teaching  of  the  Eternal 
Spirit,  endows  the  Christian  with  an  ideal  of  sanctity  alto- 
gether his  own.^  Around  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  the 
last  discourse  in  the  supper-room,  tliere  is  an  unearthly 
atmosphere  of  purity  and  holiness,  which  lights  up  in  the 
soul,  with  microscopic  distinctness,  the  consciousness  of 
secret  evil,  more  perfectly  than  could  any  code  of  precepts. 
One  only  appearing  among  us  in  human  form  has  been 
able  to  ask  the  tremendous  question,  "  Which  of  you  con- 
vinceth  Me  of  sin  ?"'^  And  as  we  gaze  on  Him,  holy, 
harmless,  undefiled,  separate  from  sinners,  in  His  purity, 
His  courage.  His  humility,  His  tenderness,  His  majestic 
moral  strength.  His  fearless  loyalty  to  truth,  His  vast 
charity,  we  see  that  wdiicli  reveals  us  to  ourselves.  At  the 
feet  of  the  Lamb  without  blemish  and  immaculate,  we  feel, 

1  Rom.  iii.  20.     2  S.  Matt.  v.  21-48.     »  S.  John  viii.  12.     *  S.  Joliuviii.  46. 

M 


1 62       ycsKs  teaches  the  consequences  of  sin.     [Lect. 

with  Job,  that  the  report  of  God's  sanctity  has  been  at 
length  exchanged  for  sight  ;^  we  exclaim  with  the  Apostle, 
"  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  0  Lord."  ^ 

Nor  does  Jesus  Christ  stop  here.  He  reveals,  as  does  no 
other,  not  merely  the  fact  and  malignity  of  sin,  but  its 
consequences.  The  sternest  things  that  have  ever  been 
said,  as  regards  sin's  prospects  in  another  world,  first 
passed  the  tenderest  lips  that  ever  proclaimed  God's  love  to 
man.^  Our  Lord  would  not  leave  the  revelation  of  the 
penal  future  to  His  Apostles:  He  took  the  unpopularity  of 
making  such  a  revelation  upon  Himself.  No  unbelieving 
criticism  can  really  touch  the  plain  meaning  of  the  tremen- 
dous words  in  which  the  All- Merciful  One  has  depicted 
the  case  of  a  moral  being,  stiffened  by  final  impenitence 
into  a  j)ermanent  self-torturing  rebellion  against  Eternal 
Justice  and  Eternal  Love.  But  for  that  awful  measure  of 
sin,  the  saying  concerning  Judas  had  been  a  paradox ;  "  It 
were  good  for  that  man  if  he  had  never  been  born."  '^ 

Yet  if  Jesus  Christ  had  only  taught  us  the  penalties  of 
sin.  He  would  but  have  enhanced  the  terrors  of  the  ancient 
law.  Whereas,  in  reality,  He  has  made  it  possible  for  us 
to  look  at  moral  evil  as  it  is.  We  Christians  can  dare  to 
face  it,  for  He  has  brought  us  both  a  pardon  and  an  antidote. 
His  cross  and  passion  are  a  revelation  as  well  as  a  cure. 
A\^ien  dying,  He  shews  us  Avhat  sin  is.  At  least  to  those 
who  take  Him  at  His  word,  and  see  in  Him  One  Higher 

1  Job  xlii.  5.  2  s.  Luke  V.  8. 

3  S.  Mark  ix.  43-48 ;  S.  Matt.  xxv.  46 ;  S.  John  v.  29. 

*  S.  Matt.  xxvi.  24;  S.  Mark  xiv.  21. 


I^-]  yesiis  is  the  Atoiiemeiit  for  sin.  163 

than  the  sons  of  men,  the  Cross  will  surely  have  this  mean- 
ing. Why  could  not  the  Holy  One,  manifested  to  His 
reasonable  creatures  in  a  form  of  sense,  have  ended  a  life  of 
beneficence  and  glory  by  such  a  visible  ascent  to  heaven  as 
was  that  of  the  Tishbite  ?  Why  those  years  of  privation 
and  sorrow,  those  sufferings  and  insults,  that  shame  and 
scorn  ?  Why  the  prostration  in  the  garden,  and  the  Wounds 
and  the  Blood,  and  the  agony  lengthened  out  by  ingenious 
cruelty,  and  the  ostentatious  exultation  and  triumph  of  the 
hosts  of  evil,  and  the  darkness  and  gloom  of  the  closing 
scene  ?  Woidd  not  this  mean  failure,  if  it  had  not  been 
proved  by  the  event  to  mean  a  victory,  wherein  the  Divine 
Sufferer  Avas  triumphing,  as  His  Apostle  notes,  over  the 
associated  powers  of  darkness  ?  ^  That  unfathomed  pain  is 
the  true  measure  of  sin  for  Christians.  In  that  keen  sensi- 
tiveness, in  that  strength  of  a  self-sacrificing  Will,  in  that 
exhaustive  anticipation  of  and  intellectual  familiarity  aa  ith 
the  coming  Agony,  followed  by  so  entire  an  acceptance  of 
it,  we  Christians  discern  the  real  character  of  the  adversary 
which  the  Perfect  Moral  Being  conquered  by  His  voluntary 
death.  From  that  fountain  of  pardon  and  strength  which 
He  opened  upon  Calvary,  all"  the  resources  which  His 
Church  can  wield  in  her  struggle  with  His  great  enemy, 
and  in  her  continuation  of  His  work  of  reconciliation  and 
peace,  are  consistently  derived.  ISTo  virtue  exists  in  the  world 
which  is  not  His;  no  cleansing  which  His  Blood  has  not 
made  good.      Standing  beneath  the  Cross,  we  can  never 

1  Col.  ii.  15.  2  Acts  iv.  12. 


1 64      The  sense  of  sin  in  a  faithful  Christian.  [Lect. 

deem  moral  evil  less  or  other  than  the  greatest,  if  it  be  not 
rather  the  only  evil.  Kneeling  before  the  Crucified,  be  our 
sense  of  guilt  what  it  may,  we  can  never  despair;  since 
the  comj)lete  revelation  of  the  malignity  of  sin  is  also 
and  simultaneously  a  revelation  of  the  Love  that  knows 
no  bounds.  ^ 

It  is  these  concrete  truths,  and  no  abstract  considera- 
tions, which  really  keep  alive  in  the  Christian  heart  an 
abhorrence  and  dread  of  moral  evil.  With  that  evil,  even 
when  all  has  been  pardoned,  every  Christian  life  is,  from 
first  to  last,  in  varying  degrees,  a  struggle.  There  are  great 
conflicts,  and  there  are  periods  of  comparative  repose; 
there  are  days  of  failure  as  well  as  days  of  victory ;  there 
are  quickenings  of  buoyant  thanldul  hope,  and  there  are 
hours  of  a  discouragement  which  is  only  not  despair.  But 
two  things  a  genuine  Christian  never  does.  He  never  makes 
light  of  any  known  sin,^  and  he  ncA^er  admits  it  to  be 
invincible.^  While  he  constantly  endeavours,  by  the 
sanctification  of  his  desires,  by  entwining  his  affections  more 
and  more  around  the  Source  of  goodness,  to  destroy  sin  in 
the  bud,  or  rather  in  its  root  and  principle,  he  is  never  off 
his  guard;  never  surprised  at  new  proofs  of  his  natural 
weakness;  never  disposed  to  underrate  either  his  dangers 
or  his  strength.  He  knows  that  now,  as  eighteen  centuries 
ago,  he  wrestles  not  against  flesh  and  blood,*  but  against 
principalities  and  powers  that  bear  him  no  good  will:  he 

1  2  Cor.  V.  14 ;  Eoiu.  v.  15.  MS.  John  iii.  9 ;  v.  18. 

»1  Cor.  X.  12.  *Eph.  vi.  12. 


IV.]  The  victory  over  sill.  165 

knows,  that  as  at  the  first  so  now,  "  if  any  man  sin,  we  have 
an  Advocate  with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous, 
and  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins."  ^  And  thus,  in  his 
inmost  life,  he  is  at  once  anxious  and  hopeful;  confident 
yet  without  presumption ;  alive  to  all  tliat  is  at  stake  day 
by  day,  hoiK  by  hour ;  yet  stayed  upon  the  thought,  nay, 
upon  the  felt  presence  of  a  Love  Which  has  not  really  left 
him  to  himself.  And  at  last,  when  it  seems  best  to  that 
Eternal  Love,  the  day  of  struggle  draws  to  its  close,  ^  and 
the  towers  of  the  Everlasting  City  come  into  view;  the  city 
within  wdiose  precincts  intellectual  error  cannot  penetrate, 
and  moral  failure  is  unknown.  "  Thanks  be  to  God  Wlio 
giveth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  ^ 


Your  alms  are  asked  to-day  on  behalf  of  the  additional 
clergy  needed  by  this  great  parish  with  its  twenty  thousand 
poor.*  You  will  feel  that  this  is  an  opportunity  of  testing 
the  earnestness  of  your  desire  to  struggle  against  our  com- 
mon enemy,  whether  in  the  world  or  in  your  own  hearts, 
by  freely  placing  your  means  at  His  disposal,  Who  is  its 
only  real  Conqueror. 

1  1  S.  John  ii.  1.  22  Tim.  iv.  6.  ^  i  Coj.,  xv.  57. 

*  St.  James's,  Piccadilly,  Additional  Curates'  Fund. 


LECTURE   V. 

jpiitf)  Suntiag  in  Uent. 

PEAYEE,  THE  CHAEACTEEISTIC  ACTION  OE 
EELIGION". 

S.  Matt.  vii.  7. 
Ash  and  it  shall  be  given  you. 

T)  ELIGION  is  the  bond  between  the  soul  and  God,  which 
■^^  sin,  by  virtue  of  its  very  nature,  breaks  up  and 
destroys.  It  is  of  importance  to  inquire  whether  man  can 
strengthen  and  intensify  that  which  he  can,  it  seems,  so 
easily  ruin  if  he  will.  Does  his  power  lie  only  in  the 
direction  of  destruction  ?  Has  he  no  means  of  invigorating 
and  repairing  a  tie,  in  itself  so  precious,  yet  in  some 
respects  so  frail  ?  The  answer  lies  in  our  Lord's  promise. 
Prayer  is  the  act  by  which  man,  conscious  at  once  of  his 
weakness  and  of  his  immortality,  puts  himself  into  real 
and  effective  communication  with  the  Almighty,  the  Eternal, 
the  Self-Existent  God.  I  say,  effective  communication. 
Eor  prayer,  as  our  Lord  teaches  in  the  text  and  elsewhere, 
is  not  without  results.  God  answers  prayer  in  many  ways. 
His  answers  to  the  soul's  petition  for  health  and  strength 


Lect.  Y.]  Prayer  the  language  of  all  religions.     1 6  7 

are  collectively  described  as  grace ;  grace  being  the  invisible 
influence  whereby  He  on  His  part  strengthens  and  quickens 
the  tie  which  binds  the  petitioner  to  Himself.  "  Ask  and  it 
shall  be  gii^en  you."  Prayer  then  braces  the  bond  of  religion 
from  the  side  of  man ;  and  grace,  God's  highest  answer  to 
prayer,  braces  it  in  a  different  and  far  more  powerful 
sense  on  the  part  of  God. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  practice  of  prayer  is 
CO- extensive  with  the  idea  of  religion.  Wherever  man  has 
believed  a  higher  power  to  exist,  he  has  not  merely  dis- 
cussed the  possibility  of  entering  into  converse  with  such 
a  power ;  he  has  assumed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  he  can 
do  so.  Upon  desert  plains  and  wild  promontories,  not  less 
than  in  crowded  thoroughfares  and  gorgeous  temples,  priest- 
hoods, and  kings,  and  multitudes  have  taken  prayer  for 
granted,  as  being  the  most  practical  as  Avell  as  the  most 
interesting  and  solemn  concern  of  life.  The  surface  of  the 
earth,  of  parts  of  our  own  island,  is  still  covered  with  the 
relics  of  some  among  these  ancient  worships.  And  if  the 
implied  conceptions  of  deity  were  degraded,  and  the  rites 
cruel,  or  inhuman,  or  impure,  and  the  minds  of  the 
worshippers  not  seldom  imbruted  by  the  very  acts  which 
should  have  raised  them  heavenward;  still  the  idea  of 
worship  as  the  natural  correlative  of  belief  in  the  super- 
human was  always  there.  To  know  that  a  higher  Being 
existed,  and  interested  Himself,  in  whatever  way,  in  the 
destinies  of  man,  was  to  feel  that  it  was  at  once  a  right 
and  a  duty  to  approach  Him. 


1 68  Prayer  in  Holy  Scripture.  [Lect. 

And  as  we  pass  the  historical  lines  within  which,  as 
Christians  believe,  mankind  has  enjoyed  a  knowledge  of 
God's  successive  revelations  of  His  true  self  and  His  true 
will,  ^^e  find  that  prayer  is  the  prominent  feature,  the 
characteristic  exercise  of  man's  highest  life.  Sacrifice 
begins  at  the  very  gates  of  Eden.^  The  life  of  early 
Patriarchs  is  described  as  a  "  walking  with  God,"  a  con- 
tinuous reference  of  thought  and  aspiration  to  the  Father 
above.  Who  yet  was  so  near  them.^  And  after  the  Mosaic 
LaAV  was  given,  when  the  idea  and  range  of  sin  had  been 
deepened  and  extended  in  the  mind  of  Israel,  we  find 
prayer  organized  in  a  system  of  sacrifices,  suited  to  various 
wants  and  moods  of  the  human  soul,  consciously  dealing 
with  its  God  as  the  King,  both  of  the  sacred  nation  and  of 
the  individual  conscience.  Penitence,  thanksgiving,  inter- 
cession, adoration,  each  found  an  appropriate  expression.^ 
Later  still,  in  the  Psalter,  prayer — the  purest,  the  loftiest, 
the  most  passionate — took  shape  in  imperishable  forms. 
And  when  at  length  a  new  revelation  was  made  in  Jesus 
Christ,  there  was  little  to  add  to  what  was  already  believed 
as  to  the  power  and  obligation  of  prayer,  beyond  revealing 
the  secret  of  its  acceptance.  Our  Lord's  precepts*  and 
example^  are  sufficiently  em]3hatic ;  and  His  Apostles 
appear  to  represent  prayer  not  so  much  as  a  practice  of 

^  Gen.  iv.  4.  ^  Qg^.  v.  21  ;  vi.  9.  3  i^gvit.  i.-vii. 

*  S.  Matt.  vi.  9  ;  S.  Luke  xi.  2  ;  S.  Matt.  xxvi.  41  ;  S.  Mark  xi.  24  ; 
S.  Luke  xviii.  ] ,  &c.  • 

5  S.  Matt.  xiv.  23 ;  S.  Mark  vi.  46  ;  S.  Luke  vi.  12,  ix.  28  ;  S.  John 
xvii.  1. 


v.]         Religio7i  as  such  has  its  specific  work.        1 69 

tlie  Christian  life,  as  its  very  breath  and  instinctive  move- 
ment. The  Christian  must  be  "continuing  instant  in 
prayer ;"  he  must  "  pray  without  ceasing."  ^ 


Each  faculty,  or  endowment,  or  form  of  activity  that 
belongs  to  man  has,  over  and  above  a  number  of  more 
indirect  effects,  its  appropriate  and  characteristic  action,  in 
which  its  whole  strength  is  embarked,  and  in  which  it  has, 
so  to  speak,  its  full  play.  To  this  law  religion  is  no  excep- 
tion. While  its  influence  upon  human  life  is  strong  and 
various  in  proportion  to  its  high  aim  and  object ;  while  it 
is  felt,  wdien  it  wields  real  empire,  in  every  department  of 
human  activity  and  interest,  as  an  invigorating,  purifying, 
chastening,  restraining,  guiding  influence,  it  too  has  a  work 
peculiarly  its  own.  In  this  work  it  is  wont,  if  we  may 
so  speak,  to  embark  its  collective  forces,  and  to  become 
peculiarly  conscious  of  its  direction  and  intensity.  This 
work  is  prayer.  Prayer  is  emphatically  religion  in  action. 
It  is  the  soul  of  man  engaging  in  that  particular  form  of 
activity  which  presupposes  the  existence  of  a  great  bond 
between  itself  and  God.  Prayer  is,  therefore,  nothing  else 
or    less   than  the   noblest  kind   of  human  exertion.      It 

^  Rom.  xii.  12  ;  1  Tliess.  v.  17. 


1 70  Objectiofi  to  prayer  as  merely '  'sentimental. ' '  [Lect. 

is  tlie  one  department  of  action  in  which  man  realizes  the 
highest  privilege  and  capacity  of  his  being.  And,  in  doing 
this,  he  is  himself  enriched  and  ennobled  almost  indefi- 
nitely: now,  as  of  old,  when  he  comes  down  from  the 
mountain,  his  face  bears  tokens  of  an  irradiation  which  is 
not  of  this  world. 

That  this  estimate  of  the  value  of  prayer  is  not  universal 
among  educated  people  in  our  day,  is  only  too  notorious. 
If  many  a  man  were  to  put  into  words  with  perfect  honesty 
and  explicitness  what  he  thinks,  he  would  say  that  prayer 
is  an  excellent  thing  for  a  clergyman,  or  for  a  recluse,  or 
for  a  sentimentalist,  or  for  women  and  children  generally ; 
that  it  has  its  uses  as  a  form  of  desultory  occupation,  an 
outlet  for  feeling,  a  means  of  discipline.  For  himself,  he 
cannot  really  think  that  much  prayer  would  help  him  much. 
It  implies  a  life  of  feeling — perhaps,  he  would  say,  of  morbid 
feeling  ;  and  he  prides  himself  upon  being  guided  only 
by  reflection.  It  is  sustained,  he  thinks,  by  imagination, 
rather  than  by  reason  ;  and  he  deems  imagination  puerile 
and  feminine.  His  religion,  whatever  it  is,  has  nothing  to 
do  with  imagination,  and  is  hard  reason  from  first  to  last; 
and  accordingly  prayer  seems  to  him  to  be  altogether  less 
worthy  of  the  energies  of  a  thinking  man  than  hard  work, 
whether  it  be  work  of  the  hands  or  of  the  brains,  whether 
it  be  study  or  business.  The  dignity  of  real  labour  is  pro- 
verbial, but  where,  he  asks,  is  the  dignity  of  so  sentimental 
an  occupation  as  prayer?  "For  his  own  part,  he  thinks," 
(I  am  quoting  words  wliich  have  actually  been  used)  "  that 


v.]       Serious  prayer  is  a  form  of  hard  work.       171 

religion  is  not  worship,  but  only  another  name  for  doing 
good  to  our  fellow-creatures." 

]N"ow,  without  saying  one  word  to  disparage  the  intimate 
connection  between  religion  and  philanthropy,  let  us  ex- 
amine the  idea  of  prayer,  which  is  taken  for  granted  in  such 
language  as  the  foregoing.  Is  it  true  that  prayer  is,  as  is 
assumed,  little  else  than  the  half  passive  play  of  sentiment 
which  flows  languidly  on  through  the  minutes  or  hours  of 
easy  reverie?  Let  those  who  have  really  prayed  give  the 
answer.  They  sometimes  describe  prayer  with  the  patriarch 
Jacob  as  a  wrestling  together  with  an  Unseen  Power,  which 
may  last,  not  unfrequently  in  an  earnest  life,  late  into  the 
night  hours,  or  even  to  the  break  of  day.  ^  Sometimes  they 
refer  to  common  intercession  with  S.  Paul  as  a  concerted 
struggle.  2  They  have,  when  praying,  their  eyes  fixed  upon 
the  Great  Intercessor  in  Gethsemane,  upon  the  drops  of 
blood  which  fall  to  the  ground  in  that  Agony  of  Eesignation 
and  Sacrifice.^  Importunity  is  of  the  essence  of  successful 
prayer.  Our  Lord's  references  to  the  subject  especially 
imply  this.  The  Friend  who  is  at  rest  with  his  family, 
will  rise  at  last  to  give  a  loaf  to  the  hungry  applicant.-^ 
The  Unjust  Judge  yields  in  the  end  to  the  resistless  eager- 
ness of  the  widow's  cry.  ^  Our  Lord's  blessing  on  the  Syro- 
Phoenician  woman  is  the  consecration  of  importunity  with 
God.«  And  importunity  means,  not  dreaminess,  but  sus- 
tained work.     It  is  through  prayer  especially  that  •'  the 

1  Gen.  xxxii.  24.       2  p^Q^  xv.  30.       »  S.  Luke  xxii.  44.       *  S.  Luke  xi.  8. 
^  S.  Luke  xviii.  5.  «  S.  Matt.  xv.  27-28 ;  S.  Mark  vii.  28-29. 


172  Prayer  exercises  the  7mders landing,     [Lect. 

kingdom  of  lieaven  sufferetli  violence,  and  the  violent  take 
it  by  force."  ^  It  was  a  saying  of  the  late  Bishop  Hamilton 
of  Salisbury,  that  "  no  man  was  likely  to  do  much  good  in 
prayer  who  did  not  begin  by  looking  upon  it  in  the  light 
of  a  work,  to  be  prepared  for  and  persevered  in  with  all 
the  earnestness  which  we  bring  to  bear  upon  subjects  which 
are,  in  our  opinion,  at  once  most  interesting  and  most 
necessary." 

This  indeed  will  appear,  if,  looking  to  an  act  of  real 
prayer,  we  take  it  to  pieces.  Of  what  does  it  consist  ?  It 
consists  always  of  three  separate  forms  of  activity  which, 
in  the  case  of  different  persons,  co-exist  in  very  varying 
degrees  of  intensity,  but  which  are  found,  in  some  degree, 
in  all  who  pray,  whenever  they  pray. 

To  pray,  is  first  of  all  to  put  the  understanding  in  motion, 
and  to  direct  it  upon  the  Highest  Object  to  "Wliich  it  can 
possibly  address  itself,  the  Infinite  God.  In  our  private 
prayers,  as  in  our  public  liturgies,  we  generally  preface  the 
petition  itself  by  naming  one  or  more  of  His  attributes. 
Almighty  and  Everlasting  God !  If  the  understanding  is 
really  at  work  at  all,  how  overwhelming  are  the  ideas,  the 
truths,  which  pass  thus  before  it;  a  boundless  Power,  an 
Existence  which  knows  neither  beginning  nor  end.  Then 
the  substance  of  the  petition,  the  motives  which  are  alleged 
for  urging  it,  the  issues  which  depend  upon  its  being  granted 
or  being  refused,  present  themselves  to  the  eye  of  the 
understanding.  And  if  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  not  Him- 
1  S.  Matt.  xi.  12. 


y.]  the  affections,  and  the  will,  173 

self,  as  being  both  God  and  Man,  the  object  of  prayer, 
yet  His  perpetual  and  prevailing  intercession  opens  upon 
Christian  thought  the  inmost  mysteries  before  the  Eternal 
Throne.  And  thus  any  common  act  of  real  prayer  keeps, 
not  the  imagination,  but  the  understanding,  occupied 
earnestly,  absorbingly,  under  the  guidance  of  faith,  from 
first  to  last.^ 

Next,  to  pray  is  to  put  the  affections  in  motion:  it  is  to 
open  the  heart.  The  object  of  prayer  is  the  Uncreated  Love, 
the  Eternal  Beauty;  He  of  Wliose  beauty  all  that  moves  love 
and  admiration  here  is  at  best  a  pale  reflection.  To  be  in 
His  presence  in  prayer,  is  to  be  conscious  of  an  expansion 
of  the  heart,  and  of  the  pleasure  which  accompanies  it, 
which  we  feel,  in  another  sense,  when  speaking  with  an 
intimate  and  loved  friend  or  relative.  And  this  movement 
of  the  affections  is  sustained  throughout  the  act  of  prayer. 
It  is  invigorated  by  the  spiritual  sight  of  God,  but  it  is  also 
the  original  impulse  which  leads  us  to  draw  near  to  Him.^ 
In  true  prayer  as  in  teaching,  "out  of  the  abundance  of  the 
heart  the  mouth  speaketh."^ 

Once  more,  to  pray,  is  to  put  the  will  in  motion,  just 
as  decidedly  as  we  do  when  we  sit  down  to  read  hard, 
or  to  walk  up  a  steep  hill  against  time.*  That  sove- 
reign power  in  the  soul,  which  we  name  the  will,  does  not 

1  Eph.  vi.  18;  S.  John  iv.  22-29;  Rom.  x.  14;  Heb.  xi.  6. 

2  S.  Matt.  XV.  8 ;  1  S.  John  iii.  21-22. 

3  S.  Matt.  xii.  34 ;  S.  Lnke  vi.  45. 

^  S.  John  ix.  31 ;  S.  Matt.  vii.  21  ;  S.  James  iv.  7-8.     These  passages  all 
imply  that  prayer  in  which  the  will  is  not  engaged  is  worthless. 


1 74    Prayer  more  exacting  than  other  work.    [Lect. 

merely,  iu  prayer,  impel  us  to  make  the  first  necessary 
mental  effort,  but  enters  most  penetratingly  and  vitally 
into  the  very  action  of  the  prayer  itself.  It  is  the  will 
Avhich  presses  the  petition ;  it  is  the  will  which  struggles 
with  the  reluctance  of  sloth  or  with  the  oppositions  of 
passion;  it  is  the  wdll  which  perseveres;  it  is  the  will 
which  exclaims,  "  I  will  not  let  Thee  go,  except  Thou  bless 
me."  ^  The  amount  of  will  w^hich  we  severally  carry  into 
the  act  of  prayer  is  the  ratio  of  its  sincerity ;  and  where 
prayer  is  at  once  real  and  prolonged,  the  demands  which 
it  makes  upon  our  power  of  concentrating  determination 
into  a  specific  and  continuous  act  are  very  considerable 
indeed. 

^ow,  these  three  ingredients  of  prayer  are  also  ingre- 
dients in  all  real  w^ork,  whether  of  the  brains  or  of  the  hands. 
The  sustained  effort  of  the  intelligence  and  of  the  will  must 
be  seconded  in  work  no  less  than  in  prayer  by  a  movement 
of  the  affections,  if  work  is  to  be  really  successful.  A  man 
must  love  his  work  to  do  it  well.  The  difference  between 
prayer  and  ordinary  work  is  that  in  j)i'£^yer  the  three 
ingredients  are  more  equally  balanced.  Study  may  in  time 
become  intellectual  habit,  which  scarcely  demands  any 
effort  of  will :  handiwork  may  in  time  become  so  mechani- 
cal as  to  require  little  or  no  guidance  from  thought :  each 
may  exist  in  a  considerable,  although  not  in  the  highest 
degree  of  excellence,  without  any  co-operation  of  the  affec- 
tions.    Not  so  prayer.     It  is  always  the  joint  act  of  the  will 

^  Gen.  xxxii,  26. 


Y.  ]  Prayer  deepens  thesefise  of apersonal  existence.  1 7  5 

and  the  understanding,  impelled  by  tlie  affections  \  and  wlien 
either  will  or  intelligence  is  wanting,  prayer  at  once  ceases 
to  be  itself,  by  degenerating  into  a  barren  intellectual  exer- 
cise, or  into  a  mechanical  and  unspiritual  routine. 

The  dignity  of  prayer  as  being  real  work  becomes  clear 
to  us  if  we  consider  the  faculties  which  it  employs.  This 
will  be  made  clearer  still  if  we  consider  the  effect  of  all 
sincere  prayer  upon  the  habitual  atmosphere  of  the  soul. 
Prayer  places  the  soul  face  to  face  with  facts  of  the  first 
order  of  solemnity  and  importance ;  with  its  real  self,  and 
with  its  God.  And  just  as  art,  or  study,  or  labour  in  any 
department  is  elevating,  when  it  takes  us  out  of  and  beyond 
the  petty  range  of  daily  and  perhaps  material  interests, 
while  yet  it  quickens  interest  in  them  by  kindling  higher 
enthusiasms  into  life;  so  in  a  peculiar  and  transcendent 
sense  it  is  with  prayer.  Prayer  is  man's  inmost  movement 
towards  a  Higher  Power ;  but  what  is  the  intellectual  view 
or  apprehension  of  himself  that  originally  impels  him  to 
move  ?  Under  wdiat  aspect  does  man  appear  to  himself  in 
2)rayer  ?  In  a  former  lecture  we  have  encountered  the 
mystery  which  lies  enclosed  within  each  one  of  us, — the 
mystery  which  is  yet  a  fact, — of  an  undying  personality. 
It  is  that  which  each  human  speaker  describes  as  "  I."  It 
is  that  of  which  each  of  us  is  conscious  as  no  one  else  can 
be  conscious.  Its  existence  is  not  proved  to  us  by  a 
demonstration,  since  we  apprehend  it  as  immediately 
obvious.  Its  certainty  can  be  shaken  by  no  sojohistical  or 
destructive  argument,  since  our  conviction  of  its  reality  is 


176        Prayer  an  escape  from  self  to  God.     [Lect. 

based  upon  a  continuous  act  of  primary  perception.  No 
sooner  do  we  withdraw  ourselves  from  the  im^^ortunities  of 
sense,  from  the  wanderings  of  imagination,  from  the  mis- 
leading phrases  which  confuse  the  mental  sight,  than  we 
find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  this  fact,  represented  by  "  I." 
For  it  is  neither  the  body  which  the  real  self  may  ignore,  nor 
a  passionate  impulse  which  the  real  self  may  conquer,  nor 
even  that  understanding  which,  close  as  it  is  to  the  real  self, 
is  yet  distinct  from  it.  The  body  may  be  in  its  decrepitude ; 
the  flames  of  passion  may  have  died  away ;  the  understand- 
ing may  be  almost  in  its  dotage ;  yet  the  inward,  self-j^os- 
sessed,  self-governing  being  may  remain  untouched,  realizing 
itself  in  struggling  against  the  instincts  of  bodily  weakness, 
and  in  crushing  out  the  embers  which  survive  the  fires  of 
extinct  passions.  Now  it  is  this  self,  conscious  of  its  great- 
ness, conscious  of  its  weakness,  which  is  the  real  agent  in 
prayer.  In  its  oppressive  sense  of  solitude,  even  in  the 
midst  of  multitudes,  this  self  longs  to  go  forth,  and  to  com- 
mune with  the  Father  of  spirits  Who  gave  it  life.  This 
real  self  it  is  wdiich  apprehends  God  with  the  understand- 
ing, which  embraces  Him  with  the  affections,  which  re- 
solves through  the  will  to  obey  Him ;  and  thus  does  it 
underlie  and  unite  the  complex  elements  of  prayer,  so  that 
in  true  heartfelt  prayer  we  become  so  conscious  of  its 
vitality  and  power.  It  is  in  prayer  especially  that  w^e  cease 
to  live,  as  it  w^ere,  in  a  single  faculty,  or  on  the  surface  of 
our  being :  it  is  in  prayer  that  we  cease  to  regard  ourselves 
as  animal  forms,  or  as  social  powers,  or  as  family  characters 


v.]  Greatness  of  communion  with  God.         177 

and  look  hard,  for  the  time  being,  at  ourselves,  as  being 
what  we  really  are;  that  is  to  say,  as  immortal  spirits, 
outwardly  draped  in  social  forms  and  proprieties,  and  linked 
to  a  body  of  flesh  and  blood,  but  in  our  felt  spiritual  soli- 
tude looking  steadily  upwards  at  the  face  of  God,  and 
straining  our  eyes  onwards  towards  the  great  eternity  which 
lies  before  us.^ 

Prayer  is  then  so  noble,  because  it  is  the  work  of  man 
as  man;  of  man  realizing  his  being  and  destiny  with  a 
vividness  which  is  necessary  to  him  in  no  other  occupation. 
But  what  shall  we  say  of  it,  when  we  reflect  further  that 
in  prayer  man  holds  converse  with  God :  that  the  Being  of 
Beings,  with  all  His  majestic  attributes,  filling  and  tran- 
scending the  created  imiverse,  traversing  human  history, 
traversing  each  man's  own  individual  history,  is  before 
him :  that  although  man  is  dust  and  ashes,  he  is,  by  prayer, 
already  welcomed  in  the  very  courts  of  heaven  ?  It  is  not 
necessary  to  dwell  on  this  topic.  Wliatever  be  the  daily 
occupations  of  any  in  this  Church,  be  he  a  worker  with  the 
hands  or  a  worker  with  the  brain,  be  he  gentle  or  simple, 
be  he  unlettered  or  educated,  be  he  high  in  the  state  or 
amonci'  the  millions  at  its  base,  is  ^  it  not  certain  that  the 
nobleness  of  his  highest  forms  of  labour  must  fall  infinitely 
below  that  of  any  single  human  spirit  entering  consciously 
into  converse  with  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  God? 

1  S.  Luke  xviii.  13,  14. 


1 78  Nahiral  effects  of  prayej^  [Lect. 


II. 


But  granted,  men  say,  the  dignity  of  prayer — granted 
even  its  dignity  as  labour:  wliat  if  this  labour  be  mis- 
applied? There  are  many  functions  in  many  states, 
very  dignified  and  not  a  little  onerous,  yet  in  a  social  and 
human  sense  not  very  productive.  Is  prayer,  in  its  sphere, 
of  this  description  ?  Has  it  no  tangible  results  ?  Does  it 
end  with  itself  ?  Can  the  labourer  in  this  field  point  to 
anything  definite  that  is  achieved  by  his  exertions  ? 

The  question  is  sufficiently  serious  at  all  times,  but 
especially  in  our  own  positive  and  practical  day.  And 
it  is  necessary  to  make  two  observations,  that  we  may  see 
more  clearly  what  issue  is  precisely  before  us. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  here  no  question  as  to  the 
subjective  effect  of  prayer ;  the  effect  which  it  confessedly 
has  upon  the  mind  and  character  of  the  person  who  prays. 
Such  effects  have  been  admitted  on  the  part  of  those  who 
unhappily  do  not  pray  themselves ;  just  as  the  Jews,  at  the 
time  of  the  Betrayal,  were  so  alive  to  tokens  in  the  disciples 
of  companionship  with  Jesus.  That  aU  the  effects  of 
Christian  prayer  upon  the  soul,  or  most  of  them,  are 
natural,  a  Christian  cannot  admit :  he  believes  them  to  be 
chiefly  due  to  the  transforming  power  of  the  grace  of  God, 
given,  as  at  other  times,  so  especially  in  answer  to  prayer. 
But  that  some,  effects  of  prayer  upon  the  soul  are  natural 
consequences   of  directing  the  mind   and  the   affections 


v.]  Intellectual,  moral,  social  effects,  i  79 

towards  a  suj)erliiiman  object,  whether  real  or  ideal,  may 
be  fully  granted.  Tims  it  lias  been  observed  that  per- 
sons without  natural  ability  have,  through  the  earnest- 
ness of  their  devotional  habits,  acquired  in  time  powers  of 
sustained  thought,  and  an  accuracy  and  delicacy  of  intel- 
lectual touch,  which  would  not  else  have  belonged  to 
them.  The  intellect  being  the  instrument  by  which  the 
soul  handles  religious  truth,  a  real  interest  in  religious 
truth  will  of  itself  often  furnish  an  educational  discipline ; 
it  alone  educates  an  intellect  which  would  otherwise  be 
uneducated.  ^  The  moral  effects  of  devotion  are  naturally 
more  striking  and  abundant.  Habitual  prayer  constantly 
confers  decision  on  the  wavering,  and  energy  on  the 
listless,  and  calmness  on  the  excitable,  and  disinterested- 
ness on  the  selfish.  It  braces  the  moral  nature  by 
transporting  it  into  a  clear,  invigorating  unearthly 
atmosphere:  it  builds  up  the  moral  life,  insensibly  but 
surely  remedying  its  deficiencies,  and  strengthening  its 
weak  points,  till  there  emerges  a  comparatively  symmetrical 
and  consistent  whole,  the  excellence  of  which  all  must 
admit,  though  its  secret  is  known  only  to  those  who  know 
it  by  experience.  2  Akin  to  the  moral  are  the  social  effects 
of  prayer.  Prayer  makes  men  as  members  of  society 
different  in  their  whole  bearing  from  those  who  do  not 
pray.  It  gilds  social  intercourse  and  conduct  with  a 
tenderness,  an  unobtrusiveness,  a  sincerity,  a  frankness,  an 
evenness  of  temper,  a  cheerfulness,  a  coUectedness,  a  con- 

1  Ps.  cxix.  100.  2  pg  xxvii.  4,  5,  6. 


i8o  Prayer,asnicaninocoinm2tnionzvith God.  [Lect. 

stant  consideration  for  others,  united  to  a  simple  loyalty 
to  truth  and  duty,  which  leavens  and  strengthens  society. 
Nay,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  prayer  has  even  physical 
results.  The  countenance  of  a  Fra  Angelico  reflects  his 
spirit  no  less  than  does  his  art :  the  bright  eye,  the  pure 
elevated  expression,  speak  for  themselves.  It  was  said 
of  one  who  has  died  within  the  present  generation,  ^  that 
in  his  later  years  his  face  was  like  that  of  an  illuminated 
clock ;  the  colour  and  gilding  had  long  faded  away  from 
the  hands  and  figures,  but  the  ravages  of  time  were  more 
than  compensated  for  by  the  light  which  shone  from 
within.  This  was  what  might  have  been  expected  in  an 
aged  man  of  great  piety ;  to  have  lived  in  spirit  on  Mount 
Tabor  during  the  years  of  a  long  life  is  to  have  caught 
in  its  closing  hours  some  rays  of  the  glory  of  the 
Transfiguration. 

Secondly,  prayer  is  not  only — perhaps  in  some  of  the 
holiest  souls  it  is  not  even  chiefly — a  petition  for  some- 
thing that  we  want  and  do  not  possess.  In  the  larger 
sense  of  the  word,  as  the  spiritual  language  of  the  soul, 
prayer  is  intercourse  with  God,  often  seeking  no  end 
beyond  the  pleasure  of  such  intercourse.  It  is  praise ;  it 
is  congratulation ;  it  is  adoration  of  the  Infinite  Majesty ; 
it  is  a  colloquy  in  which  the  soul  engages  with  the  All- 
wise  and  the  All-holy;  it  is  a  basking  in  the  sunshine, 
varied  by  ejaculations  of  thankfulness  to  the  Sun  of 
Eighteousness  for  His  light  and  His  warmth.      In  this 

1  Eev.  J.  Keble. 


v.]  Prayer  not  ahuays  intended  to  get  somethiug,  \  8 1 

larger  sense,  the  earlier  part  of  the  Te  Deiim  is  prayer  as 
much  as  the  latter  part ;  the  earliest  and  latest  clauses  of 
the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  as  truly  as  the  central  ones;  the 
Sanctns  or  the  Jubilate  no  less  than  the  Litany;  the 
Magnificat  as  certainly  as  the  fifty-first  Psalm.  When  we 
seek  the  company  of  our  friends,  we  do  not  seek  it  simply 
with  the  view  of  getting  something  from  them:  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  be  with  them,  to  be  talking  to  them  at  all, 
or  about  anything ;  to  be  in  possession  of  their  sympathies 
and  to  be  shewing  our  delight  at  it;  to  be  assuring 
them  of  their  place  in  our  hearts  and  thoughts.  So  it  is 
with  the  soul,  when  dealing  with  the  Friend  of  friends — 
with  God.  Prayer  is  not,  as  it  has  been  scornfully 
described,  "  only  a  machine  warranted  by  theologians  to 
make  God  do  what  His  clients  want : "  it  is  a  great  deal 
more  than  petition,  which  is  only  one  department  of  it : 
it  is  nothing  less  than  the  wdiole  spiritual  action  of  the 
soul  turned  towards  God  as  its  true  and  adequate  object. 
And  if  used  in  this  comprehensive  sense,  it  is  clear  that, 
as  to  much  prayer,  in  the  sense  of  spiritual  intercourse 
with  God,  the  question  whether  it  is  answered  can  never 
arise,  for  the  simple  reason  that  no  answer  is  asked  for. 

But  whether  prayer  means  only,  as  in  popular  language 
it  does  generally  mean,  petition  for  a  specific  object,  or 
the  whole  cycle  of  possible  communion  between  the  soul 
and  God,  the  question  whether  it  is  heard  is  a  very 
practical  one.  We  do  not  address  inanimate  objects, 
however  })eautiful  they  may  be,   except  in   the   way  of 


1 82  Prayer  involves  waste  of  time,         [Lect. 

poetical  apostrophe.  We  do  not  enter  into  spiritual 
colloquy  with  tlie  mountains,  or  the  rivers,  or  the  skies, 
with  a  view  to  discharging  a  duty  to  them,  or  really 
improving  ourselves.^  If  there  is  really  no  being  above 
who  does  hear  us,  what  can  be  the  use  of  continuing  a 
practice  that  is  based  upon  an  altogether  false  presump- 
tion ?  The  subjective  benefits  of  prayer  depend  upon  our 
belief  in  its  real  power.  But  even  if  they  did  not,  who  would 
go  through  a  confessedly  fictitious  exercise  at  regular  inter- 
vals with  a  view  to  securincj  them  ?  "VVlio  would  continue 
to  pray  regularly,  if  he  were  once  well  persuaded  that  the 
effect  of  prayer  is  after  all  only  like  the  effect  of  the  higher 
philosophy  or  poetry ;  an  education  and  a  stimulus  to  the 
soul  of  man,  but  not  an  influence  that  can  really  touch  the 
mind  or  will  of  that  Being  to  Whom  it  is  addressed  ? 
Nobody  denies  the  moral  and  mental  stimulus  which  is  to 
be  gained  from  the  study  of  the  great  poets.  But  do  we 
read  Homer,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Goethe  each  morning  and 
evening,  and  perhaps  at  the  middle  of  the  day  ?  Or  if 
such  were  the  practice  of  any  of  us,  should  we  have  any 
approach  to  a  feeling  of  being  guilty  of  a  criminal 
omission,  if  now  and  then  we  omitted  to  read  them  ?  No  : 
if  prayer  is  to  be  persevered  in,  it  must  be  on  the  strength 
of  a  conviction  that  it  is  actually  heard  by  a  Living 
Person.  We  cannot  practise  any  intricate  trickery  upon 
ourselves  with  a  view  to  our  moral  edification.     We  cannot 

^  The  apostrophes  of  the  Psalms  and  the  Benedicite  ai-e  really  acts  of 
praise  to  God,  of  which  His  creatures  furnish  the  occasion. 


v.]  tcnless  God  is  really  alive.  183 

pray,  if  we  believe  in  our  hearts  that  in  prayer  we  are  only 
holding  communion  with  an  ideal  world  of  our  own 
creation;  that  we  are  like  children,  with  overheated 
imaginations,  vainly  endeavouring  to  pass  the  barriers 
which  really  confine  us  to  our  dark  earthly  prison-house ; 
while,  in  our  failure,  we  half  consciously,  half  uncon- 
sciously, cheat  ourselves  with  the  consolation  of  talking 
to  shapes  of  power  or  benevolence  traced  by  our  fathers 
or  by  ourselves  upon  its  inexorable  walls.  We  cannot  fall 
into  the  ranks  of  the  Christian  Church,  lifting  up  the  holy 
hands  of  sacrifice  and  intercession  on  all  the  mountains  of 
the  world,  if  in  our  hearts  we  see  in  her  only  a  new 
company  of  Baal-worshippers  gathering  upon  the  slopes  of 
some  modern  Carmel,  and  vainly  endeavouring  to  rouse 
her  idol  into  an  impossible  animation ;  while  the  Elijahs 
of  materialistic  science  stand  by  to  mock  her  fruitless 
efforts  with  the  playful  scorn  of  that  tranquil  irony  to 
which  their  higher  knowledge  presumably  entitles  them. 

The  question  whether  God  hears  prayer,  is  at  bottom  .^y 
the  question  whether  He  is  really  alive ;  whether  in  any 
true  sense  of  the  term  He  exists  at  all.  No  word  is  used 
more  equivocally  than  the  word  "  God  "  in  the  present  day.  v' 
If  by  "  God "  we  mean  only  a  product  of  the  thought  or 
consciousness  of  man,  to  which  it  cannot  be  certainly  pre- 
sumed that  any  being  actually  corresponds;  the  highest 
thought  of  man — yet  only  man's  highest  thought;  then  there 
is  of  course  no  one  who  can  hear  us.  It  has  been  said  tliat 
if  a  man  talks  out  loud  to  himself,  apostrophizing  what  are  in 


184  If  God  is  really  alive,  [Lect. 

truth  only  his  own  conceptions,  it  is  difficult  not  to  credit 
him  with  a  certain  tinge  of  madness;  and  it  would  be  just 
as  practical  to  address  our  prayer  to  the  carved  and  gilded 
idols  of  Babylon,  whose  manufacture  roused  the  sternest 
satire  of  the  Evangelical  Prophet,  as  to  the  unreal  abstrac- 
tions, which,  labelled  with  the  Most  Holy  Name,  are  sent 
us  from  the  intellectual  workshops,  ancient  and  modern,  of 
Alexandria  or  of  Berlin.  And  if  by  "  God  "  is  meant  only 
the  unseen  force  of  the  universe,  or  its  collective  forces ;  if 
He  is  the  principle  of  growth  in  the  plant,  the  life-principle 
in  the  animal  or  in  man;  we  need  not  read  Spinoza  in  order 
to  convince  ourselves  of  the  fruitlessness  of  prayer.  A 
self-existing  force  or  cause,  if  such  can  be  conceived,  with- 
out intelligence,  without  personality,  of  course  without  any 
moral  attributes,  may  be  a  thing  to  w^onder  at,  but  it  cer- 
tainly is  not  a  being  to  speak  to.  We  may  of  course 
ejaculate  to  such  a  thing  if  we  like;  but  we  might  just  as 
well  say  litanies  to  the  winds  or  to  the  ocean.  The  ques- 
tion may  be  safely  left  to  our  utilitarian  instincts.  Time 
and  strength,  after  all,  are  limited,  and  we  shall  not  in  the 
long  run  spend  "  our  money,"  at  least  in  this  direction,  "  for 
that  which  is  not  bread,  or  our  lal30ur  for  that  which 
satisfieth  not."^ 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  God  exists,  whether  we  think  about 
Him  or  not ;  if  He  be  not  merely  the  mightiest  force,  the 
first  of  causes,  but  something  more;  if  He  be  a  personal 
Being,  thinking  with  no  limits  to  His  thought,  and  willing 

^  Isaiah  Iv.  2. 


v.]  He  must  hear p7^aye7\  185 

with  no  fetters  around  His  liberty;  then  surely  we  may 
reach  Him,  if  we  will.  "Wliat  is  to  prevent  it  ?  Cannot  we 
men,  at  our  pleasure,  embody  our  thought,  our  feeling,  our 
desires,  or  purposes  in  language,  and  so  make  them  pass 
into  and  be  apprehended  by  the  created  finite  personalities 
around  us  ?  Wliere  is  the  barrier  that  shall  arrest  thought, 
longings,  desires,  entreaties,  not  as  yet  clothed  (why  need 
they  be  clothed  ?)  in  speech,  as  they  mount  up  from  the 
soul  towards  the  all-embracing  Intelligence  of  God  ?  And 
if  God  be  not  merely  an  infinite  Intelligence,  but  a  moral 
Being,  a  mighty  Heart,  so  that  justice,  and  mercy,  and 
tenderness  are  attributes  of  His  character,  then  to  appeal 
to  Him  in  virtue  of  these  attributes  is  assuredly  to  appeal 
to  Him  to  some  purpose.  If  an  Omnipresent  Intelligence 
is  a  sufiicient  guarantee  of  His  being  able  to  hear  us ;  an 
interest  such  as  Justice  and  Mercy  imply  on  His  part 
towards  creatures  who  depend  upon  Him  for  the  original 
gift,  and  for  the  continued  maintenance  of  life,  is  a 
guarantee  of  His  willingness  to  do  so. 

It  is  on  this  ground  that  God  is  said  to  hear  prayer  in 
Holy  Scripture.  That  He  shoidd  do  so  foUows  from  the 
reality  of  His  nature  as  God.  Elijah's  irony  implies  that 
He  is  imlike  the  Phoenician  Baal  in  being  really  alive.  ^ 
A  later  Psalmist  contrasts  Him  in  like  manner  witli  the 
Assyrian  idols,  in  that  "  they  have  eyes  but  see  not,  they 
have  ears  but  hear  not."  ^  They  do  but  fiU  their  temples 
with  gorgeous  impotence.     But  Israel's  God  is  the  author 

^  1  Kings  xviii.  27.  "  Ps.  cxv.  5. 


1 86  Scriptural  inferences  from  the  life  of  God.  [Lect. 

of  tlie  very  senses  whereby  we  are  conscious  of  each 
other's  presence  and  wishes,  and  can  enter  into  a  com- 
panionship of  thought  and  purpose.  Is  He  debarred  from 
the  use  of  the  gifts  which  He  Himself  bestows  with  so 
bountiful  a  hand  ?  "  He  that  planted  the  ear  shall  He  not 
hear,  or  He  that  formed  the  eye  shall  He  not  see  ? "  ^  Is 
it  not,  on  the  contrary,  reasonable  to  believe  that  these 
powers  must  exist  in  a  much  higher  and  more  perfect  form 
in  the  one  Being  who  gives  them  than  in  the  myriads 
upon  whom  they  are  bestowed,  and  by  whom  they  are  only 
held  in  trust?  And  if  it  is  improbable  that,  amid  the 
innumerable  beings  who  are  alive  to  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  His  creation,  the  Creator  alone  should  be  blind 
and  deaf;  is  it  more  probable  that  He  who  has  implanted 
in  our  breasts  feelings  of  interest  and  pity  for  one  another 
should  be  Himself  insensible  to  our  pain  and  need  ?  Our 
hearts  must  anticipate  and  echo  the  statement  of  the 
Psalmist,  that  God  does  hear  the  desire  of  the  poor ;  that 
the  innocent,  the  oppressed,  the  suffering,  have  especial 
claims  upon  Him.  And,  to  omit  other  illustrations,  our 
Lord  reveals  Him  as  a  Father,  the  common  parent  of  men, 
of  whose  boundless  love  all  earthly  fatherhood  is  a  shadow 
and  a  delegation.  If  the  earthly  parent,  being  evil,  does 
not  yet  give  a  stone  when  his  child  cries  for  bread ;  the 
heavenly  Father  will  not  fall  short  of  the  teachings  of  an 
instinct  which  He  has  Himself  implanted,  by  failing  to 
give  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him.^ 

1  Ps.  xciv.  9.  2  s_  Luke  xi.  11-13. 


v.]         Barriers  supposed  to  arrest pj^ayer.  187 


III. 


If  a  man  is  a  good  Tlieist — we  need  not  say,  a  good 
Christian — lie  must  believe  that  the  Father  of  Spirits  is 
not  deaf  to  the  voice  of  the  human  soul;  that  the  thanks- 
giving and  praise,  the  intercessions  and  supplications,  the 
j)enitence  and  the  self-surrender  of  beings  to  whom  He  has 
given  moral  and  intellectual  life,  is  not  utterly  lost  upon  the 
Giver.  But  will  He  indeed  answer  prayer,  when  prayer  takes 
the  form  of  a  petition  for  some  specific  blessing  which  must 
be  either  granted  or  refused  ?  There  is  no  doubt  as  to  the 
reply  which  the  Bible  and  the  Church  have  given  to  this 
question.  But  what  do  some  modern  thinkers  say  about 
it?  Do  they  not  deny  the  power  of  prayer,  by  surrounding 
the  Throne  of  God  with  barriers,  which,  as  they  would 
have  it,  oblige  Him,  while  "  the  sorrowful  sighings  of  the 
prisoners"  of  this  vale  of  tears  incessantly  "come  before 
Him,"  to  make  as  though  He  heard  not,  and  to  shorten 
His  hand  as  if  it  could  not  save  V 

The  first  presumed  barrier  against  the  efficacy  of  prayer 
to  which  men  point  is  the  scientific  idea  of  law,  reigning 
throughout  the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  material  universe. 
This  idea,  as  we  are  constantly  reminded,  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  conquests  of  modern  thought;  and  no  man,  so 
it  is  said,  can  enter  into  it  with  an  intelligent  sympathy 
without  abandoning  the  fond  conceit  that  God  will  grant 
a  particular  favour  to  one  of  His  creatures  upon  being  asked 


1 88  I.   The  ba^naei^  of  law.  [Lect. 

to  do  so.  It  may  have  been  pardonable  to  pray  for  rain, 
for  health,  for  freedom  from  pestilence  and  famine,  when 
these  things  were  supposed  to  depend  upon  the  caprice  of 
an  omnipotent  will.  But  the  scientific  idea  of  law  renders 
these  prayers  absurd.  We  know  that  a  shower  is  the  pro- 
duct of  atmospheric  laws,  which  make  a  shower,  under 
certain  circumstances,  inevitable;  that  the  death  of  an 
individual  is  the  result  of  physiological  laws  which  abso- 
lutely determine  it.  The  idea  that  a  shower  or  the  death 
of  a  man  are  contingent  upon  the  good  pleasure  of  a 
Being  Who  can  avert  or  precipitate  them  at  pleasure  is 
unscientific ;  it  belongs  to  days  when  the  idea  of  law  had 
not  yet  dawned  upon  the  intellect  of  civilization,  or  when, 
at  any  rate,  large  margins  of  the  physical  world,  and  the 
whole  of  the  spiritual  world,  were  supposed  to  be  beyond 
its  frontiers,  as  being  abandoned  to  the  government  of  a 
capricious  omnipotence.  Surely,  it  is  added,  we  have  really 
attained  to  a  nobler  idea  of  the  universe,  than  was  this  old 
theological  conception  of  the  Bible  and  the  Church:  the 
superiority  is  to  be  measured  by  those  fundamental  instincts 
of  fitness  within  us,  which  assign  to  law  and  order  a  higher 
place  in  our  minds  than  can  belong  to  a  personal  will. 

Does  not  the  very  word  law,  by  reason  of  its  majestic 
and  imposing  associations,  here  involve  us  in  some  indis- 
tinctness of  thought  ?  What  do  we  mean  by  law  ?  When 
we  speak  of  a  law  of  nature  are  we  thinking  of  some  self- 
sustained  invisible  force,  of  which  we  can  give  no  account 
except  that  here  it  is,  a  matter  of  experience  ?     Or  do  we 


v.]  What  is  meant  by  law?  189 

mean  by  a  law  of  nature  only  a  principle  wliicli,  as  our 
observation  shews  us,  appears  to  govern  particular  actions 
of  the  Almiglity  Agent  Who  made  and  Who  upholds  the 
universe?  If  the  former,  let  us  frankly  admit  that  we 
have  not  merely  fettered  God's  freedom;  we  have,  alas! 
ceased  to  believe  in  Him.  For  such  self-sustained  force  is 
either  self-originating,  in  which  case  there  is  no  Being  in 
existence  who  has  made  all  that  constitutes  tliis  universe. 
Or  otherwise,  having  derived  its  first  impact  from  the 
creative  Will  of  God,  this  force  has  subsequently  escaped 
altogether  from  His  control,  so  that  it  now  fetters  His 
liberty;  and,  in  this  case,  there  is  no  Being  in  existence 
who  is  Almighty,  in  the  sense  of  being  really  Master  of 
this  universe.  If,  however,  we  mean  by  law  the  observed 
regularity  with  which  God  works  in  nature  as  in  grace; 
then,  in  our  contact  with  law,  we  are  dealing,  not  with 
a  brutal,  unintelligent,  unconquerable  force,  but  with 
the  free  will  of  an  intelligent  and  moral  Artist,  "Wlio 
works,  in  His  perfect  freedom,  with  sustained  and  beauti- 
ful symmetry,  ^Vliere  is  the  absurdity  of  asking  Him 
to  hold  His  hand,  or  to  hasten  His  work?  He  to  Whom 
we  pray  may  be  trusted  to  grant  or  to  refuse  a  prayer, 
as  may  seem  best  to  the  highest  wisdom  and  the  truest 
love.  And  if  He  grant  it.  He  is  not  without  resources ; 
even  although  we  should  have  asked  Him  to  suspend 
what  we  call  a  natural  law.  Can  He  not  then  pro- 
vide for  the  freedom  of  His  action  without  violating  its 
order?      Can  He  not  supersede  a  lower  rule  of  working 


I  go  2.  The  barrier  of  a  Divine  p7^edestinatio7i.  [Lect. 

by  the  intervention  of  a  higher  ?  If  He  really  works  at 
all ;  if  something  that  is  neither  moral  nor  intelligent  has 
not  nsurped  His  throne, — it  is  certain  that  "  the  thing  that 
is  done  upon  earth  He  doeth  it  Himself;"  and  that  it  is 
therefore  as  consistent  with  reason  as  with  reverence  to 
treat  Him  as  being  a  free  Agent,  Who  is  not  really  tied 
and  bound  by  the  intellectual  abstractions  with  which  finite 
intellects  would  fain  annihilate  the  freedom  of  His  action. 

No  ;  to  pray  for  rain  or  sunshine,  for  health  or  food,  is 
just  as  reasonable  as  to  pray  for  gifts  which  the  soul  only 
can  receive — increased  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering, 
gentleness,  goodness,  faith.  All  such  prayers  presupj)Ose 
the  truth  that  God  is  not  the  slave  of  His  own  rules  of 
action;  that  He  can  innovate  upon  His  work  without 
forfeiting  His  perfection;  that  law  is  only  our  w^ay  of 
conceiving  of  His  regularized  working,  and  not  an  external 
force  which  governs  and  moulds  what  we  recognize  as  His 
work.  It  dissolves  into  thin  air,  as  we  look  hard  at  it, 
this  fancied  barrier  of  inexorable  law;  and  as  the  mist 
clears  off,  beyond  there  is  the  throne  of  the  Moral  King 
of  the  universe,  in  Whose  eyes  material  symmetry  is  as 
nothing  when  compared  with  the  spiritual  well-being  of 
His  moral  creatures. 

A  second  barrier  to  the  efficacy  of  prayer  is  sometimes 
discovered  in  the  truth  that  all  which  comes  to  pass  is  fore- 
determined  in  the  predestination  of  God.  How  is  the  effi- 
cacy of  prayer  to  be  reconciled,  asks  the  fatalistic  predesti- 
narian,  with  the  boundless  power  and  knowledge  of  God  ? 


v.]      Prayer  a  depaiHment  of  human  freedom.      1 9 1 

Is  not  everything  that  happens  to  us  the  decision  of  an 
Almighty,  Wise,  Beneficent  Will ;  a  Will  which,  in  human 
phrase,  has  ordained  it  from  all  eternity  ?  Could  this  Will 
have  been,  could  It  be,  other  than  It  is  ?  Has  time  any 
meaning  for  It  ?  Is  It  not  in  Its  Omniscience  and  Omnipo- 
tence eternally  what  It  is  ?  Where,  then,  is  there  any  room 
for  the  effect  of  prayer?  Can  it  be  conceived  that  the 
erring  understanding  and  finite  will  of  the  creature  will  be 
allowed  to  impose  its  decisions  on  the  infallible  Mind  and 
resistless  determinations  of  God  ?  Surely  if  we  are  to  go 
on  praying,  after  recognizing  the  Sovereignty  of  God,  we 
must  give  up  the  notion  of  exerting  a  real  influence  upon 
the  Divine  Will :  we  must  content  ourselves  with  resigna- 
tion, with  bringing  our  minds  into  conformity  with  that 
which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  quite  beyond  the  range  of  our 
influence. 

This  language  does  but  carry  us  into  one  department  of 
the  old  controversy  between  the  defenders  of  the  sovereignty 
of  God  on  the  one  side,  and  the  advocates  of  the  free  will 
of  man  on  the  other.  The  very  idea  of  God,  as  it  occurs  to 
the  human  mind,  and  the  distinct  statements  of  revelation, 
alike  represent  the  Divine  Will  as  exerting  sovereign  and 
resistless  sway.  If  it  were  otherwise,  God  would  not  be 
Almighty,  that  is.  He  would  not  be  God.  On  the  other 
hand,  our  daily  experience  and  the  language  of  Scripture 
both  assure  us  that  man  is  literally  a  free  agent :  his  freedom 
is  the  very  ground  of  his  moral  and  religious  responsibility. 
Are  these  two  truths  hopelessly  incompatible  with  each 


192        Prayer  is  itself pi^ede.stined,  yet  free.     [Lect. 

other  ?  So  it  may  seem  at  first  sight ;  and  if  we  escape 
the  clanger  of  denying  the  one  in  the  supposed  interests  of 
the  other,  if  we  shrink  from  sacrificing  God's  sovereignty 
to  man's  free  will  with  Arminius,  and  from  sacrificing  man's 
freedom  to  God's  sovereignty  with  Calvin,  we  can  only 
express  a  wise  ignorance  by  saying,  that  to  us  they  seem 
like  parallel  lines  which  must  meet  at  a  point  in  eternity, 
far  beyond  our  present  range  of  view.  "We  do  know, 
however,  that  being  both  true,  they  cannot  really  contradict 
each  other;  and  that  in  some  manner,  which  we  cannot 
formulate,  the  Divine  Sovereignty  must  not  merely  be  com- 
patible with,  but  must  even  imply  the  perfect  freedom  of 
created  wills.  So  it  is  with  prayer  and  the  Divine  pre- 
destination. God  orders  all  that  happen  to  us,  and,  in  virtue 
of  His  infinite  knowledge,  by  eternal  decrees.  But  He  also 
says  to  us,  in  the  plainest  language,  that  He  does  answer 
prayer,  and  that  practically  His  dealings  with  us  are 
governed  in  matters  of  the  greatest  importance  as  well-  as 
of  the  least  by  the  petitions  which  we  address  to  Him. 
Wliat  if  prayers  and  actions,  to  us  at  the  moment  perfectly 
spontaneous,  are  eternally  foreseen  and  included  within  the 
all-embracing  Predestination  of  God,  as  factors  and  causes, 
working  out  that  final  result  which,  beyond  all  dispute,  is 
the  product  of  His  good  pleasure  ?  Whether  I  open  my 
mouth  or  lift  my  hand,  is,  before  my  doing  it,  strictly 
within  the  jurisdiction  and  power  of  my  personal  will ;  but 
however  I  may  decide,  my  decision,  so  absolutely  free  to 
me,  will  have  been  already  incorporated  by  the  All-seeing, 


\  ^'^^.  A  nthi^opoiJW7^phic  conception  ofGod's  dignity.  193 

All-controlling  Being  as  an  integral  part,  however  insignifi- 
cant, of  His  one  all- embracing  purpose,  leading  on  to  effects 
and  causes  beyond  itself.  Prayer  too  is  only  a  foreseen 
action  of  man  wliicli,  together  with  its  results,  is  embraced 
in  the  eternal  predestination  of  God.  To  us  this  or  that 
blessing  may  be  strictly  contingent  on  our  praying  for  it ; 
but  our  prayer  is  nevertheless  so  far  from  necessarily 
introducing  change  into  the  purpose  of  the  Unchangeable, 
that  it  has  been  all  along  taken,  so  to  speak,  into  account  by 
Him.  If  then,  with  "  the  Father  of  Lights  "  there  is  in  this 
sense  "  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning,"  it  is  not 
therefore  irrational  to  pray  for  specific  blessings,  as  we  do 
in  the  Litany,  because  God  works  out  His  plans  not  merely 
in  us  but  by  us ;  and  we  may  dare  to  say  that  that  which 
is  to  us  a  free  self-determination,  may  be  not  other  than  a 
foreseen  element  of  His  work. 

A  third  barrier  supposed  to  interfere  with  the  efficacy  of 
prayer  is  the  false  idea  of  the  Divine  dignity  which  is 
borrowed  from  our  notions  of  human  royalties.  It  is  assumed 
that  a  supreme  governor  cannot  be  expected  to  take  account 
of  trifling  circumstances,  or  to  decide  between  petty  and  con- 
flicting claims.  He  legislates  for  the  universe ;  but  it  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  He  w^ill  also  discharge  all  the  minute  and 
harassing  duties  of  a  local  executive.  The  power  of  prayer 
implies  a  special  providence,  and  a  special  providence,  we 
are  told,  is  beneath  the  dignity  of  God.  "We  have  already 
encountered  this  line  of  thought,  not  in  its  practical  bear- 
ings upon  prayer,  but  as  it  affects  our  belief  as  to  the  Divine 

0 


1 94      Material  btdk  not  the  test  of  greatness.  [Lect. 

Xature.  "  Do  you  imagine,  men  ask,  when  you  reflect  upon 
the  vast  universe  in  which  we  live — upon  that  immeasur- 
able space — upon  those  innumerable  worlds — upon  those 
systems  beyond  systems  of  suns  which  are  discovering 
themselves  slowly  but  surely  to  our  telescopes — that  He 
who  made  this  mighty  whole  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  listen 
to  the  little  story  of  your  wants  and  hopes  and  fears  ?  He 
has  instituted  some  good  and  universal  rules  of  govern- 
ment under  which  you  live  :  if  they  sometimes  bear  hardly 
upon  you,  your  case  is  only  that  of  others,  and  you 
must  take  your  chance.  To  expect  Him  to  suspend  or  to 
revoke  His  legislation  on  your  particular  account,  is  to 
sacrifice  common  sense  to  outrageous  egotism ;  the  egotism 
which  can  suppose  that  a  petty  individual  life,  a  worm 
crawling  on  the  surface  of  one  of  His  smallest  planets,  can 
be  an  object  of  this  particular  consideration  and  interest  to 
the  Almighty  Creator." 

Even  at  the  risk  of  representing  human  egotism,  it  must 
be  here  and  again  asserted  that  man's  place  in  the  creation 
is  not  determined  by  the  considerations  which  this  objection 
supposes.  In  the  eyes  of  an  intellectual  and  spiritual 
being,  material  bulk  is  not  the  only  or  the  highest  test  of 
greatness.  If  God  is  not  to  be  supposed  to  be  mainly 
interested  in  vast  accumulations  of  senseless  matter;  if 
there  be  in  the  estimate  of  a  ]\Ioral  Being  other  and 
worthier  measures  of  greatness ;  if  the  organic  be  higher 
than  the  inorganic ;  and  that  which  feels  than  that  which 
has  no  feeling;  if  that  which  thinks  be  higher  than  that 


v.]   ^.  The  barrier  of  opposing  hinnan  interests.    195    • 

wliicli  ouly  feels ;  and  that  which  freely  conforms  to  moral 
will  higher  than  that  which  only  thinks ;  if  a  fly  be  really 
a  nobler  thing  than  a  granite  mountain,  and  a  little  child 
than  a  rhinoceros  or  a  mammoth, — then  we  need  not  acquiesce 
in  this  depreciatory  estimate  of  man's  place  in  creation, 
or  of  his  claims  upon  the  ear  of  God.  On  his  bodily  side 
man  is  insignificant  enough.  As  a  spirit  conscious  of  his 
own  existence,  and  determining  his  action  in  the  freedom 
of  his  will,  he  does  not  deceive  himself  in  believing  that 
God  has  crowned  him  with  an  especial  glory  and  honour  j 
among  the  visible  creatures.^  But  even  if  man  were  not 
thus  honoured,  it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  no  part  of  the  Divine 
dignity  to  be  inattentive  even  to  the  lowest  creatures  of  His 
hand.  The  Throne  of  heaven  is  not  modelled  upon  the 
type  of  an  Oriental  despotism,  and  God's  Greatness  is  not 
compromised  by  the  duties  of  administration  any  more 
than  it  is  heightened  by  the  enactment  of  law.  The  Infinite 
]\Iind  is  not  less  capable  of  formulating  the  most  universal 
principles  because  He  enters  with  perfect  sympathy  and 
intelligence  into  each  of  our  separate  wants  and  efforts,  the 
wants  and  efforts  of  creatures  who  are  really  greater,  because 
infinitely  more  like  their  Creator,  than  are  the  largest  stars 
and  suns. 

A  fourth  barrier  to  the  eflicacy  of  prayer  is  supposed  to 
be  discoverable  in  an  inadequate  conception  of  the  interests 
of  human  beings  as  a  whole.  To  suppose  that  God  can 
answer  individual  prayers  for  specific  blessings  is  incon- 

1  Ps.  viii.  5. 


196      A^o  vmn  inJ2ircd  by  another  s  real  good,  [Lect. 

sistent,  Ave  are  told,  witli  any  serious  a^^preciation  of  liumaii 
interests.  One  man  or  nation  asks  for  that  wliicli  may  be 
an  injury  to  another.  The  Spaniards  prayed  for  the  success 
of  their  Armada:  the  English  prayed  against  it.  Both  could 
not  be  listened  to.  The  weather  cannot  consult  the  con- 
venience of  everybody  at  once :  and  therefore  the  specific 
prayers  of  well-meaning  villagers,  if  they  could  be  attended 
to,  could  only  be  attended  to  by  a  God  who,  instead  of  being 
the  Father  of  all  His  creatures,  reserved  special  indulgences 
for  His  favourites. 

Here  it  is  natural  to  remark  that  if  God  should  think 
fit  to  grant  a  large  proportion  of  the  particular  requests 
which  would  be  found  among  the  daily  prayers  of  an 
earnest  Christian,  He  would  not,  to  say  the  least,  tliereby 
do  any  injury  to  others,  whether  they  were  Christians  or 
not.  Prayer  for  the  highest  well-being  of  any  human 
being  may  be  granted  without  damaging  other  human 
beings.  If  God  should  condescend  in  answer  to  prayer  to 
teach  one  of  His  servants  more  humility,  purity,  or  love, 
this  would  not  oblige  Him  to  withdraw  spiritual  graces 
from  any  others  in  order  to  do  it.  Nor  are  other  persons 
the  worse  for  coming  into  contact  with  one  whom  God 
has  made  loving,  or  pure,  or  humble,  in  answer  to  prayer. 
Is  it  not  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  they  are  likely  to  be 
much  better,  and  therefore  that  a  large  number  of  answers 
to  prayer  for  personal  blessings  necessarily  extend  in  their 
effects  beyond  those  who  are  immediately  blessed  ? 

But  observe  further  that  every  prayer  for  specific  bless- 


v.]  All  prayer  tacitly  conditioned.  197 

ings  in  a  Christian  soul  is  tacitly,  if  not  expressly,  con- 
ditioned. The  three  conditions  which  are  always  under- 
stood are  given  at  the  beginning  of  the  Lord's  Prayer — 
"  Hallowed  be  Thy  name,  Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be 
done."  In  effect  these  three  conditions  are  only  one.  If 
a  change  of  weather,  or  a  restoration  to  health  or  any 
blessing  be  prayed  for,  a  Christian  petitioner  deliberately 
wills  that  his  prayer  should  be  refused,  supposing  that  to 
grant  it  should  in  any  way  obscure  God's  glory  in  other 
minds,  or  hinder  the  advance  of  His  kingdom,  and  so  con- 
travene what  must  be  His  will.  Every  Christian  tacitly 
adds  to  every  prayer,  "  Nevertheless  not  my  will  but 
Thine  be  done."  All  Christian  prayer  takes  it  for  granted, 
first,  that  the  material  world  exists  for  tlie  sake  of,  and  is 
entirely  subordinate  to,  the  interests  of  the  moral ;  and, 
secondly,  that  God  is  the  best  judge  of  what  the  true 
interests  of  the  moral  world  really  are.  Therefore,  if  his 
specific  petition  is  not  granted,  a  Christian  will  not  con- 
clude tliat  his  real  prayer  is  unanswered.  His  real  prayer 
was  from  the  first  that  God's  Name  might  be  hallowed 
among  men  by  the  advance  of  His  kingdom  and  the  doing 
of  His  Will,  through  God's  granting  a  particular  request 
which  he  urges.  He  knows  that  his  own  highest  object  may 
be  best  secured  by  the  refusal  of  the  very  blessing  for 
which  he  pleads  ;  and  he  puts  his  finite  knowledge  and 
his  narrow  sympathies  into  the  hands  of  Infinite  Wisdom 
and  Infinite  Love,  with  perfect  confidence  that  the  final 
decision  will  be  the  best  answer  to  liis  real  and  deepest 


198      5-  The  barrier^  of  hiLinan  self-7'eliance.    [Lect. 

prayer.  It  is  thus  that  he  realizes  the  promise,  "Every  one 
that  asketh  receiveth."  He  too  receives  that  which  he  really 
wants,  though  his  specific  petition  should  he  refused. 

A  last  barrier  to  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer  is  really 
to  be  discovered  in  man's  idea  of  his  own  self-sufficiency. 
It  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  one  of  the  excellences  of 
our  character  as  a  nation  is  constantly  a  source  of  clanger 
to  our  faith  in  the  power  of  prayer.  Pelagius  was  him- 
self a  native  of  Britain  ;  and  the  old  heresy  of  substituting 
human  self-sufficiency  for  dependence  on  the  grace  and 
help  of  God  is  A^ery  congenial  to  the  temper  which  we 
English  cultivate,  with  such  success,  in  individual  action 
and  in  political  life.  After  all,  we  say,  do  we  not  depend 
on  our  own  efforts  for  being  what  we  are,  and  for  doing 
what  we  do  ?  Wliatever  God  may  see  fit  to  do  for  us, 
our  best  form  of  prayer  is  work ;  it  is  the  determination 
to  secure  what  we  want  by  personal  efforts  to  get  it. 
The  indolent  or  the  imaginative  may  be  left  to  lengthen 
out  their  litanies ;  but  practical  men  will  fall  back  upon 
the  wise  proverb,  that  "  God  helps  those  who  help  them- 
selves." 

Here,  however,  it  must  be  insisted  on  by  the  one  side, 
and  admitted  on  the  other,  that  many  objects  of  prayer  are 
altogether  out  of  the  reach  of  human  effort,  and  that  if  they 
are  to  be  secured  at  all,  they  must  be  given  freely  by  God. 
But  the  fact  of  our  moral  freedom,  as  felt  in  the  capacity 
for  work,  to  which  Pelagianism  ajDpeals,  is  not  more  clear 
than  the  fact  of  our  dependence.     Do  what  we  will,  we 


v.]  Work  and  prayer,  hoiu  related.  199 

depend  on  others.  We  are  linked  to  tliem  "by  a  thousand 
ties ;  we  are,  all  of  us,  acted  upon  most  powerfully  by  the 
circumstances  which  surround  us  ;  the  governing  moods  of 
thought  and  feeling  within  ourselves  are  often  determined 
by  these  circumstances.  This  is  true  of  "  self-made  men," 
as  we  call  them,  not  less  than  of  others.  How  much  did 
not  Faraday  owe  to  Sir  Humphrey  Davy !  And  this 
dependence  upon  circumstances  is  in  fact  dependence  upon 
things  which  God  controls.  Facts  are  not  less  facts  be- 
cause they  seem  to  be  incompatible ;  because  the  effort 
to  reconcile  them  teaches  our  reason  that  its  limits  are 
narrower  than  we  wich.  It  is  easier  to  say  that  man  is 
entirely  free,  that  he  depends  on  nothing ;  or  to  say  that 
man  is  simply  the  creature  of  circumstances,  that  he  is 
never  really  free ;  than  to  say,  what  is  the  real  truth,  that 
man  is,  in  his  entire  freedom,  absolutely  dependent,  that 
he  is,  in  his  entire  dependence,  absolutely  free.  Yet  this 
apparent  paradox  is  the  literal  truth,  which  refuses  to 
ignore  facts  in  order  to  make  the  task  of  reason  easier, 
and  to  enable  it  the  better  to  round  off  its  trenchant  Init 
inconclusive  theories  about  human  action.  And  because 
life  is  so  subtle  an  intermixture  of  dependence  and  action, 
prayer  is  the  most  practical  of  all  forms  of  work ;  it  is  at 
once  the  activity  of  man's  freedom,  and  the  expression 
of  his  dependence ;  and  tlie  answer  which  it  wins  is  not 
less,  in  one  sense,  the  result  of  human  effort,  than  in 
another  it  is  the  work  of  God. 

And  thus  it  is  in  and  1)y  prayer  that  the  two  governing 


200     SpeciUation  and  action  meet  in  prayers  [Lect. 

elements  of  religious  life,  thought  and  work,  alike  find  their 
strongest  impulse  and  their  point  of  unity.  Such  is  our 
weakness,  that  we  constantly  tend  to  a  one-sided  use  of 
God's  gifts.  We  are  either  absorbingly  speculative  and  con- 
templative on  the  one  hand,  or  we  are  absorbingly  practical 
and  men  of  action  on  the  other.  Either  exaggeration  is 
fatal  to  the  true  life  of  religion,  which  binds  the  soul 
to  God  by  faith  as  well  as  by  love ;  by  love  not  less  than 
by  faith ;  by  a  life  of  energetic  service  not  less  truly  than 
by  a  life  of  communion  with  light  and  truth.  It  is  in 
23rayer  that  each  element  is  at  once  quickened  in  itself, 
and  balanced  by  the  presence  of  the  other.  The  great 
masters  and  teachers  of  Christian  doctrine  have  always 
found  in  prayer  their  highest  source  of  illumination,  ^ot 
to  go  beyond  the  limits  of  the  English.  Church,  it  is 
recorded  of  Bishop  Andrewes  that  he  spent  five  hours  daily 
on  his  knees.  The  greatest  practical  resolves  that  have 
enriched  and  beautified  human  life  in  Christian  times 
have  been  arrived  at  in  prayer ;  ever  since  the  day  when, 
at  the  most  solemn  service  of  the  Apostolical  Church,  the 
Holy  Ghost  said,  "  Separate  Me  Barnabas  and  Saul  for 
the  work  whereunto  I  have  called  them."^  It  is  prayer 
which  prevents  religion  from  degenerating  into  mere 
religious  thought  on  the  one  side,  or  into  mere  philanthropy 
on  the  other.  In  prayer  the  man  of  action  will  never 
become  so  absorbed  in  his  work  as  to  be  indifferent  to  the 
truth,  which  is  its  original  motive.     In  j)rayer  the  man  of 

^  Acts  xiii.  2. 


y.]    Anszuers  to  prayer  a  matter  of  expeinence.  201 

study  and  contemplation  ^yill  never  forget  that  truth  is 
given,  not  so  much  that  it  may  interest  and  stimulate  our 
understandings,  as  that  it  may  govern  and  regenerate  oin^  life. 
And  thus  it  is  that  prayer  is  of  such  vital  importance  to 
the  well-being  of  the  soul.  Study  may  be  dispensed  with 
by  those  who  work  with  their  hands  for  God :  handiwork 
may  be  dispensed  with  by  those  who  seek  Him  in  books 
and  in  thought.  But  prayer  is  indispensable;  alilve  for 
workers  and  students,  alike  for  scholar  and  peasant,  alike 
for  the  educated  and  the  unlettered.  For  we  all  have  to 
seek  God's  Face  above ;  we  all  have  souls  to  be  sanctified 
and  saved ;  we  all  have  sins  and  passions  to  beat  back  and 
to  conquer.  And  these  things  are  achieved  pre-eminently 
by  prayer,  which  is  properly  and  representatively  the 
action  of  religion.  It  is  the  action  whereby  we  men,  in  all 
our  frailty  and  defilement,  associate  ourselves  with  our 
Divine  Advocate  on  high,  and  realize  the  sublime  bond 
which  in  Him,  the  One  Mediator  between  God  and  man, 
unites  us  in  our  utter  unworthiness  to  the  Strong  and 
All-holy  God. 

That  prayer,  sooner  or  later,  is  answered,  to  all  who  have 
prayed  earnestly  and  constantly,  is,  in  different  degTces, 
a  matter  of  personal  experience.  David,  Elijah,  Hezekiah, 
Daniel,  the  Apostles  of  Christ,  were  not  the  victims  of  an 
illusion,  in  virtue  of  which  they  connected  particular  events 
which  would  have  happened  in  any  case  with  prayers  that 
preceded  it.  They  who  never  pray,  or  who  never  pray  with 
the  humility,  confidence,  and  importunity  that  wins  its  way 


202         The  claims  of  p7^ayer  tcpoit  our  time.    [Lect. 

to  the  Heart  of  God,  cannot  speak  from  experience  as  to 
the  effects  of  prayer;  nor  are  they  in  a  position  to  give 
credit,  with  generous  simplicity,  to  those  who  can.  But, 
at  least,  on  such  a  subject  as  this,  the  voice  of  the  whole 
company  of  God's  servants  may  be  held  to  counterbalance 
a  few  a  iwiori  surmises  or  doctrines;  and  it  is  the  very 
heart  of  humanity  itself  wdiich  from  age  to  age  mounts 
up  with  the  Psalmist  to  the  Eternal  Throne — "  0  Thou 
That  liearest  prayer,  unto  Thee  shall  all  flesh  come."  ^  And 
Christians  can  penetrate  within  the  veil.  They  know  that 
there  is  a  majestic  pleading,  which  for  eighteen  centuries 
has  never  ceased,  and  which  is  itself  omnipotent — the 
pleading  of  One  who  makes  their  cause  His  own:  they 
rest  upon  the  Divine  words,  "  Whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  the 
Father  in  My  Name,  He  will  give  it  you."" 
.  /  A  time  will  probably  come  to  most  of  us,  if  it  has  not 
come  to  some  already,  when  we  shall  wish  that  the  hours 
at  our  command,  during  the  short  day  of  life,  had  not  been 
disposed  of  as  they  have.  After  all,  this  world  is  a  poor 
thing  to  live  for,  when  the  next  is  in  view.  Whatever  be 
their  claims,  created  beings  have  no  business  to  be  sitting 
on  that  highest  throne  within  the  soul  that  belongs  to  the 
Creator.  Yet,  for  all  that,  too  often  they  do  sit  there. 
And  time  is  passing.  Of  that  priceless  gift  of  time,  how 
much  will  one  day  be  seen  to  have  been  lost;  how  ruinous 
shall  we  deem  our  investment  of  this  our  most  precious 
stock !     How  many  interests,    occupations,   engagements, 

1  Ps.  Ixv.  2.  2  s,  joiin  xvi.  23. 


Y.]    The  view  of  time  from  the  Eternal  World.  203 

friendships — I  sx3eak  not  of  the  avowed  ways  of  "  killing 
time/'  as  it  is  termed  with  piteous  accuracy — will  be  then 
regarded  only  as  so  many  precautions  for  building  our 
house  upon  the  sand:  as  only  so  many  expedients  for 
assuring  our  failure  to  compass  the  true  end  of  our  exis- 
tence !  It  may  not  now  seem  possible  that  we  should  ever 
think  thus.  Life  is  like  the  summer's  day;  and  in  the  first 
fresh  morning  we  do  not  realize  the  noon-day  heat,  and  at 
noon  we  do  not  think  of  the  shadows  lengthening  across 
the  plain,  and  of  the  setting  sun,  and  of  the  advancing 
night.  Yet,  to  each  and  all,  the  sunset  comes  at  last;  and 
those  who  have  made  most  of  the  day  are  not  unlikely 
to  reflect  most  bitterly  how  little  they  have  made  of  it. 
Yliatever  else  they  may  look  back  upon  with  thankful- 
ness or  with  sorrow,  it  is  certain  that  they  will  regret  no 
omissions  of  duty  more  keenly  than  neglect  of  prayer ;  that 
they  will  prize  no  hours  more  than  those  which  have 
been  passed,  whether  in  private  or  in  public,  before  that 
Throne  of  Justice  and  of  Grace  upon  which  they  hope  to 
gaze  throughout  eternity. 


LECTURE  VI. 

.  ^alm  Siintiag. 

THE  MEDIATOE,  THE  GUAEANTEE  OF 
EELIGIOUS  LIFE. 

S.  Matt,  xxiii.  41. 
Jesus  aslecl  them  saying,  What  thinJc  ye  of  Christ  ? 

A  T  lengtli,  Ave  reach  the  limits  which  the  season  assigns 
-^  to  our  scanty  treatment  of  a  snbject  that  is  in  itself 
inexhaustible.  The  relationship  or  bond  between  God  and 
the  soul  of  man,  which  we  term  religion,  is  obscured  and 
interrupted  on  man's  side  by  sin ;  it  is  reasserted  and 
strengthened  by  prayer.  But  no  human  efforts  can  of  them- 
selves avail  to  establish  or  to  restore  it.  If  God  answers 
the  prayers  of  individuals,  has  He  answered  the  prayer  of 
prayers ;  the  great  prayer  of  humanity  in  all  the  ages  ? 
Has  He  deigned  to  grant  the  prayer  that  He,  too,  would 
on  His  side  give  some  sign  or  pledge  of  real  communion 
with  us ;  that  He  would  not  leave  us  to  ourselves,  walking 
after  our  own  ways,  feeling  after  Him  if  haply  we  might 
find  Him,  but  only  feeling  on,  century  after  century,  in  the 
twilight  of  reason ;  that  He  would,  in  prophetic  language, 


Lect.  YL]    Moral  probability  of  a  revelation.    205 

rend  the  heavens  and  come  down,  and  Lid  the  skies 
pour  down  righteousness  ?  Is  religion  only  a  human  in- 
stinct or  effort  upon  which  no  encouragement,  no  sanction, 
no  corresponding  and  invigorating  acknowledgment  has  been 
bestowed  from  on  high  ?  Or  has  God  spoken  ?  Has  He 
unveiled  Himself?  Have  the  clouds  and  darkness  that 
are  round  about  Him  rolled  away,  so  that  the  righteousness 
and  judgment  which  are  the  habitation  of  His  seat  might 
become  clearly  manifest  to  us  ? 

If  we  really  believe  God  to  be  a  floral  Being,  we  shall  be 
prepared  to  find  that  He  has  spoken  to  us.  The  strength  of 
the  confidence  with  which  we  anticipate  a  revelation  will 
vary  exactly  with  our  faith  in  the  morality  of  God.  If  He 
were  only  an  intelligence,  or  a  force,  there  would  be  no 
reason  or  apology  for  listening  to  hear  whether  any  voice 
breaks  the  silence  of  the  spheres.  But  if  He  has,  or  rather 
is,  a  Heart ;  if  the  moral  qualities  which  are  discoverable 
in  ourselves  have  any  transcendent  and  majestic  counter- 
part in  Him ;  then,  supposing  the  question  whether  He  has 
given  a  revelation  to  be  for  us  still  unanswered,  or  even 
unexamined,  we  do  well  to  traverse  all  the  corridors  of 
history,  to  take  counsel  with  the  current  wisdom  and  ex- 
perience of  the  living,  and  to  cross-question  the  recorded 
convictions  of  the  dead,  until  we  see  reason  to  hope  that  a 
solution  is  at  least  at  hand ;  until  "  the  day  da^^'n  and  the 
day-star  arise  in  our  hearts." 

Already,  indeed,  and  almost  at  each  stage  of  our  progress, 
we  have  ever  and  anon  halted  our  steps,  and  hushed  other 


2o6     Jesus  Christ  as  Teacher  of  religion.     [Lect. 

disputants  around  us,  that  we  might  listen  to  One  Wliose 
place  among  men,  at  least  as  a  Master  and  Teacher  of 
religion,  does  not  really  enter  into  controversy.  It  is  He 
Who  has  set  forth  in  its  fulness  the  parental  character  of 
God.  It  is  He  Avho  has  fully  unveiled  to  the  eye  of  the 
human  soul  the  secret  of  its  boundless  capacities,  and  of  its 
disheartening  impotence.  It  is  He  Who  by  His  life  of 
unassailable  purity,  and  by  His  death  of  voluntary  sacrifice, 
has  lighted  up  the  dark  realities  of  moral  evil.  It  is  His 
example.  His  precepts,  it  is  widespread  faith  in  His  assist- 
ance and  intercession,  which  have  popularized  prayer,  with- 
out degrading  its  idea.  It  is  through  Him  that  prayer  has 
come  to  be  the  most  serious  and  welcome  occupation  of  the 
noblest  and  purest  in  the  human  family ;  the  continuous 
expression  of  a  desire  to  assert  and  strengthen  the  link 
wdiich  binds  man  to  the  Source  and  End  of  his  existence. 
And  thus,  besides  placing  before  us  the  idea  of  religion,  He 
has,  as  no  other,  taught  us  to  know  Him  between  Whom 
and  ourselves  religion  is  a  bond;  and  what  it  is,  call  w^e  it 
disease  or  antagonist,  that  breaks  religion  up;  and  what  the 
spiritual  action  in  wdiich  it  is  especially  embodied  and  re- 
asserted. Has  He  done  more  for  religion  than  this  ?  Is 
His  relation  towards  it  only  an  external  one,  such  as  was 
that  of  a  Eaphael  or  a  Michael  Angelo  towards  their 
majestic  creations,  such  as  was  that  of  a  ISTew^ton  or  a  Cuvier 
towards  the  great  subjects  of  their  lifelong  study  ?  Or  is 
He,  besides  being  a  Master  and  Teacher  of  religion,  some- 
thing: more,  and  altooether  distinct  from  this  ?     Is  He  the 


VI.  ]     Is  Jestis  Himself  the  object  of  religion  ?      207 

masterpiece  of  His  own  art  ?  Is  He  tlie  subject  of  His 
own  teaching  ?  Does  He  enter  into  the  object-matter  of 
religion  as  an  integral  part  of  it  ?  Is  He  not  merely  the 
greatest  of  religious  teachers,  but  also  the  first  and  greatest 
of  religious  lessons  which  God  has  given  to  man  ?  Is  He, 
in  short,  God's  answer  in  history  to  man's  constant  aspira- 
tion heavenward ;  the  impersonated  bond  between  God  and 
man  ;  a  "  Mediator,"  as  Scripture  terms  it,  "Who  bridges 
over  the  chasm  which  sin  had  opened  between  earth  and 
heaven  ? 

In  pausing  to  consider  this  question,  it  is  natural  to  every 
Christian  heart  to  express  the  joy  of  finding  ourselves  at 
His  blessed  feet.  Whose  name  is  above  every  Name  that  is 
pronounced,  whether  in  His  temples  or  elsewhere.  On  the 
last  five  Sundays  in  which  you  have  accompanied  me  with 
your  generous  sympathy,  it  has  often  happened  to  us  to 
stray  for  a  while  into  schools  of  thought,  where  He,  our 
Lord,  is  eithej  unknown,  or  denied  His  due.  We  have 
occasionally  been  listening  to  teachers  and  glancing  at 
systems  which  profess,  in  whatever  sense,  to  be  able  to  dis- 
pense with  Him.  No  men  love  home  as  do  tliose  whose 
duty  has  for  awhile  obliged  them  to  reside  abroad ;  and  the 
atmosphere  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  the  Church  is  not 
the  less  welcome,  because  it  is  a  change  from  that  of  human 
literatures  and  of  earthly  philosophies.  To-day  we  cease, 
at  least  in  the  main,  to  measure  the  forms  and  density  of 
the  clouds  which  veil  the  face  of  heaven  from  sad  but 
ea^^er  multitudes.      We  pass  into  the  light  and  warmth 


2o8         Historicaliinportance  of  the  Life      [Lect. 

of  the  Sun  of  Eigliteousness,  to  occupy  ourselves  from 
first  to  last  with  His  glory  and  His  beauty ;  we  advance 
to  recognize,  as  I  trust,  in  Him  the  living  bond  of  unity 
between  the  great  empire  of  souls  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
King  Eternal,  Immortal,  Invisible  on  the  other. 

Jesus  Christ  is  a  Name  around  which  a  vast  accumula- 
tion of  histories,  ideas,  beliefs,  have  gathered.  Christianity 
has  many  aspects;  literary,  philosophical,  moral,  historical, 
political,  theological,  spiritual,  practical  What  is  the  reli- 
gious aspect  of  Christianity  and  of  Christ?  What  is  the 
aspect  which  exhibits  our  Lord's  relation  to  religion,  consi- 
dered as  the  bond  between  God  and  the  human  soul? 


"  Wliat  think  ye  of  Christ?"  Is  He  a  subject  of  the 
highest  historical  interest  ?  No  educated  man,  at  least, 
whatever  be  his  faith  or  his  life,  can  deny  the  reality  or  the 
greatness  of  Christ's  place  in  human  history.  Nothing  is 
more  certain  in  the  annals  of  mankind  than  this,  that  Jesus 
Christ  lived  in  Palestine,  and  was  put  to  death  eighteen 
centuries  and  a  half  ago.  This  fact  belongs  to  general 
human  knowledge,  just  as  much  as  does  the  life  of  Julius 
Cnesar,  or  of  Alexander  the  Great,  or  of  Socrates,  or  of 
]\Iahomet.      Nobody,  indeed,  does  deny  the  general  fact. 


VI.]  of  Jcsits  Christ,  nndejtiable.  209 

Strauss,  for  instance,  tliongli  he  endeavours  to  distinguish 
between  the  residuary  historical  element  in  the  Gospels, 
and  the  incrustation  of  legend,  which,  in  his  opinion,  has 
somehow  become  associated  with  it,  yet  fully  admits  that 
there  is  history  in  the  Gospels ;  he  admits  that  Jesus  Christ 
lived  and  died  in  the  age  of  Tiberius.  And  if  even  this  be 
admitted,  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ  must  possess 
for  any  intelligent  man  the  highest  possible  degree  of 
interest.  He  must  feel  that,  in  point  of  social  and  historical 
importance,  it  stands  alone.  No  doubt,  at  the  time,  the 
Csesar  Tiberius  was  everywhere  on  the  lips  and  in  the 
minds  of  men;  while  the  retired  religious  Teacher,  as  He 
seemed  to  be,  in  Palestine,  was  by  His  teaching.  His  acts, 
and  the  opposition  which  they  aroused,  only  furnishing  a 
little  conversation  and  excitement  to  the  peasantry  and  to 
the  officials  of  a  remote  province.  But  if  the  importance 
of  a  life  is  to  be  measured  by  its  results  in  history  and  to 
civilization,  even  although  we  should  put  all  religious  and 
even  moral  considerations  aside,  who  would  think  most  of 
the  Emperor?  What  is  the  lasting  and  living  influence 
which  Tiberius  now  exerts  upon  the  world,  except  it  be  to 
furnish  a  thesis  now  and  then  to  clever  essay  writers,  who 
wish  indirectly  to  attack  or  to  defend  modern  imperialism? 
But  who  can  deny  that  at  this  moment,  explain  it  how  we 
will,  Jesus  Christ,  His  life,  His  work.  His  Person,  lives  in 
the  hearts  of  multitudes  as  the  object  of  most  cherished  and 
devoted  homage ;  that  He  governs  the  ideas,  the  aspirations, 
the  social  and  political  action  of  millions  of  mankind;  that 

P 


2IO  Distinction  between  an  intellectiLal     [Lect. 

the  most  active  and  enterprising  section  of  the  hnman 
family,  still,  in  various  senses,  places  itself  under  the  shadow 
of  His  N'ame  and  patronage;  and  that  if  He  has  many 
opponents,  there  is  no  serious  probability  of  His  being 
spiritually  or  intellectually  dethroned  ?  All  this  is  a  matter 
of  simple  observation.  The  truth  of  it  is  most  obvious  to 
those  who  know  most  about  human  affairs  and  human  his- 
tory. And  it  at  once  invests  the  earthly  Life  of  Christ,  and 
all  that  illustrates  and  belongs  to  it,  with  the  highest 
practical  and  speculative  interest ;  with  the  interest  which 
belongs  to  the  great  problems  of  past  history,  and  with  the 
interest  which  belongs  to  those  great  living  forces  that 
make  themselves  felt  day  by  day  around  us,  and  contribute 
powerfully  towards  determining  the  current  of  events. 

JSTot  to  be  interested  in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  then,  is 
to  be,  I  do  not  say  irreligious,  but  unintelligent.  It  is  to 
be  insensible  to  the  nature  and  claims  of  the  most  powerful 
force  that  has  ever  moulded  the  thought  and  swayed  the 
destinies  of  civilized  man.  But  to  feel  this  interest,  it  is 
almost  unnecessary  to  add,  a  man  need  not  even  profess  to 
be  a  Christian.  He  may  indeed  be  earnestly  opposed  to 
Christianity:  and  his  opposition  can  scarcely  in  any  case 
be  formidable,  unless  he  has  given  his  mind  to  the  careful 
study  of  that  which  he  opposes.  To  such  men  as  Celsus, 
or  Lucian,  or  Porphyry,  or  the  apostate  Emperor  Julian, 
or  the  philosopher  of  Ferney,  Christianity  was  a  matter 
of  the  deepest  intellectual  interest.  Men  do  not  write 
like  Celsus,  or  act  like  Julian,  or  epigrammatize  with  the 


VI.]  and  a  religioics  intei^est  in  ^esns.  2 1 1 

bitterness  of  Voltaire,  about  a  doctrine  in  which  they  feel 
little  concerned.  ISTay,  in  order  to  have  such  an  interest,  a 
man  need  not  be  an  active  opponent  of  Christianity.  Looking 
upon  it  with  the  eye,  and  only  with  the  eye,  of  a  philoso- 
pher ;  jealously  excluding  from  his  estimate  every  trace  of 
passion,  whether  it  be  the  passion  of  hatred  or  the  passion 
of  affection;  he  may  yet  understand  that  it  is  too  great, 
too  powerful,  in  a  word,  too  original  a  phenomenon,  to  be 
ignored,  or  rather  not  to  be  investigated  with  patient  per- 
severance. Such  might  seem  to  have  been  the  case  with 
that  most  accomplished  of  modern  critics,  the  late  M.  Saint- 
Beuve.  His  History  of  Port-Eoyal  betrays  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  most  delicate  and  beautiful  forms  of 
Christian  faith  and  Christian  love.  N"one  knew  better  than 
he  the  claims  of  Jesus  Christ — of  His  life  in  itself,  and  of 
His  place  in  history — ujDon  the  attention  of  all  earnest 
students  of  nature  and  of  man.  N'o  pages  are  more  marked 
than  his  by  a  sustained  and  rigid  justice  which  is  incapable 
of  condescending  to  a  phrase  that  is  dictated  by  any  but 
that  which  the  writer  intends  and  believes  to  be  a  severely 
critical  judgment.  This  lofty  impartiality  could  not  but 
make  him  write  at  times  like  a  devoted  Christian  in 
virtue  of  his  moral  and  literary  sympathies;  and  many  men 
have  read  him  without  suspecting  his  real  place  in  the 
world  of  thought.  Yet,  at  his  last  hours,  we  are  told,  he 
purposely  declined  the  ordinary  consolations  of  a  Christian 
deathbed:  his  interest  in  Christianity  did  not  imply  a  bond 
to  any  living  person  with  Whom,  in  the  most  solemn  and 


2 1 2  Impression  made byoitrL ord's '  'character. ' '  [Lect. 

critical  moments   of  existence,  there   are  histories  to  be 
reviewed,  and  accounts  to  be  settled. 

That  a  literary  and  historical  interest  in  Christianity 
and  Christ  has  its  value,  who  would  deny  ?  It  may,  in 
union  witJi  faith  and  love,  achieve  services  of  no  common 
order  for  the  kingdom  of  the  truth.  It  may,  under  any 
circumstances,  enable  Christians  to  realize  the  historical 
settings  of  their  faith,  more  truly  and  vividly  than  would 
otherwise  be  j)Ossible.  Thus,  in  a  very  creditable  sense,  it 
may  hew  wood  and  draw  water  for  the  sacred  camp,  and 
we  must  thank  it  with  all  our  hearts  for  its  services.  But 
it  is  not  of  itself  a  religious  interest.  It  is  only  an 
intellectual  and  scholarly  taste  dealing  with  a  religious 
subject-matter.  It  is  one  thing  to  cleanse  the  glasses 
of  a  powerful  telescope ;  it  is  another  to  use  them  as 
they  should  be  used  by  an  observer  and  student  of  the 
heavens. 


II. 


But  the  question  must  occur.  What  was  it  in  Jesus 
Christ  which  gave  Him,  in  sj)ite  of  social  and  political 
insignificance,  so  commanding,  so  unrivalled  a  position  in 
history  ?  The  least  answer  that  can  be  given — I  am  far 
from  implying  that  it  is  an  adequate  answer — is,  that  His 
character  made  a  profound,  an  ineffaceable  impression  upon 


VL]     Ckai^acter  appreciated  by  the  moral  sense.     2 1 3 

His  contemporaries ;  an  impression  so  deep  and  abiding, 
that  it  moved  tliem,  peasants  and  paupers  as  tliey  were,  to 
acliieve  the  moral  revohition  of  the  civilized  world.  And 
we  are  told  that  admiration  for  Christ's  human  character 
is  still  the  sustaining  element  in  Christianity;  that  it 
explains  its  per^Dctuation  as  it  explains  its  original  victories ; 
that  it  furnishes,  in  fact,  the  true  answer  to  the  question, 
"  What  think  ye  of  Christ  ? "  Undoubtedly  the  appreciation 
of  moral  character  is  a  higher  and  more  religious  thing 
than  the  appreciation  of  any  external  historical  fact,  how- 
ever imposing.  In  order  to  enter  into  the  political  con- 
sequences of  a  decisive  campaign,  a  man  requires  only  a 
well-stored  and  cultivated  intellect ;  in  order  to  do  justice 
to  a  saintly  character  the  observer  must  have  that  which 
is  infinitely  higher  in  itself,  though  of  less  account  among 
men — a  sensitive  moral  instinct,  a  tender  and  penetrating 
heart.  And  yet,  happily,  tlie  higher  gift  is  the  more 
common.  The  questions  which  may  be  raised  about  our 
Lord's  genealogies  in  the  first  and  third  Evangelists  can 
only  be  answered  by  a  few  well-trained  scholars.  But 
every  child  can  feel  the  pathos  of  the  relief  suddenly 
given  to  the  hungry  multitudes;  of  the  visit  to  the 
house  of  mourning  at  Bethany;  of  the  successive  in- 
cidents of  the  stern  conflict  with  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem ; 
of  the  Last  Supper;  of  the  Agony;  of  the  Betrayal; 
of  the  Cross.  A  great  character,  even  more  than  a  great 
picture,  or  a  great  poem,  or  a  magnificent  mountain,  speaks 
for  itself.     It  commends  itself  to  average  men,  even  though 


2  14  Oitr  Lord' s  ''character''  not  the  product  [Lect. 

they  cannot  take  tlieir  sympathies  to  pieces,  and  say  pre- 
cisely what  is  the  feature  in  it  that  fascinates  them. 
There  is  that  in  their  humanity  which  responds,  however 
imperfectly,  to  the  form  of  moral  beauty  before  them,  and 
they  surrender  themselves  to  an  instinct  which  they  do 
not  explain,  but  which  they  can  implicitly  trust. 

Thus  it  is  that  our  Lord's  simplicity.  His  self-sacrifice, 
His  love  of  the  humble  and  of  the  poor,  joined  to  His 
resistless  moral  ascendancy.  His  fearless  courage.  His 
strength  which  is  so  entirely  compatible  with  the  utmost 
tenderness,  touches  us  all.  Nothing  perhaps  shews  Jesus 
Christ  more  clearly  to  us  than  the  circumstances  under 
which  He  delivered  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  For  here 
we  are  convinced  that  His  character  was  so  far  from  being 
a  product  whether  of  His  nation  or  of  His  age,  as  to  be 
in  marked  opposition  to  some  of  their  ruling  tendencies.  In 
the  Jew  of  the  age  of  Tiberius,  the  national  feeling,  in- 
tensified by  the  Eoman  conquest,  had  almost  killed  out 
the  human.  The  children  of  the  men  who  under  David 
and  Solomon  had  ruled  Western  Asia,  beheld  on  every 
side  the  symbols  of  their  political  slavery.  The  Eoman 
legionaries  were  keeping  guard  near  the  temple;  the  Eoman 
tax-gatherer  was  making  his  presence  felt  in  every  home. 
And  so  the  Jew  wrapped  himself  more  and  more  closely 
and  sullenly  in  devotion  to  the  ideas  and  institutions  of 
his  ancestors,  and  looked  forward  to  a  time  when  the 
prophecies  would  be  fulfilled  in  the  rigid  political  sense 
in  which  he  read  them ;  when  the  Eoman  invader  would 


VL]  of  His  age  and  ciracmstances.  2 1 5 

be  driven  by  an  indignant  people,  headed  by  tlieir  King- 
Messiah,  from  the  sacred  soil.  There  were  adventurers  in 
that  age  who  really  endeavoured  to  meet  this  predomina- 
ting national  temper,  and  the  effort  led  to  some  well- 
known  catastrophes.  And  doubtless  it  was  such  a  political 
expectation  as  this  which  was  kindled  in  the  breast  of 
multitudes  by  the  announcement  throughout  Galilee  that 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  w^as  at  hand.  The  phrase  fired 
their  imaginations.  They  followed  the  Teacher  Who  uttered 
it  out  of  their  towns  and  villages  to  a  distant  hill-side,  that 
they  might  listen,  as  they  trusted,  to  His  plan  for  an 
approaching  insurrection  or  for  a  decisive  campaign.  And 
what  was  His  manifesto  ?  He  uttered  the  Beatitudes ; 
He  compared  the  Pharisaic  with  the  true  morality;  He 
proclaimed  the  law  and  unfolded  the  prospects  of  a  spiritual 
empire,  of  the  kingdom  of  the  truth. 

It  is  not  in  the  unrivalled  exhibition  of  any  one  form  of 
human  excellence,  whether  purity  or  humility,  or  charity, 
or  courage,  or  veracity,  or  self-denial,  or  justice,  or  con- 
sideration for  others,  that  we  best  appreciate  the  signifi- 
cance of  our  Lord's  human  character.  It  is  in  the  equal 
balance  of  all  excellence,  in  the  absence  of  any  warping, 
disturbing,  exaggerating  influence,  that  modern  writers 
have  been  forward  to  recognize  a  moral  sublimity,  which 
they  can  discover  nowhere  else  in  history.  The  subject 
has  been  handled  by  a  distinguished  living  layman,  who 
certainly  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  approached  it  with 
any  strong  ecclesiastical  bias.     He   observes  that  "  there 


2 1 6     Oitr  Lord's  ''character^'  most  vivid, yet  [Lect. 

are  many  peculiarities  arising  out  of  personal  and  historical 
circumstances,  wliicli  are  incident  to  tlie  best  human 
characters,  and  which  would  prevent  any  one  of  them  from 
being  universal  or  final  as  a  type.  But  the  t}^e  set  up 
in  the  Gospels  as  the  Christian  type  seems  to  have  escaped 
all  these  peculiarities,  and  to  stand  out  in  unapproached 
purity,  as  well  as  in  unapproached  perfection  of  moral 
excellence."  ^  Accordingly  he  argues  that  it  can  be  said 
to  belong  exclusively  to  neither  of  the  "  two  hemispheres 
in  the  actual  world  of  moral  excellence — the  noble  and 
the  amiable,  or,  in  the  language  of  moral  taste,  the  grand 
and  the  beautiful."  It  belongs  to  both  of  them,  "  perfectly 
and  undistinguishably,  the  fusion  of  the  two  classes  of 
qualities  being  complete,  so  that  the  mental  eye,  though  it 
be  strained  to  aching,  cannot  discern  whether  that  on  which 
it  gazes  be  more  the  object  of  reverence  or  of  love."  ^  This 
type  is  equally  free  from  sexual  peculiarities ;  it  combines 
the  strength  of  manhood  with  feminine  tenderness  so  com- 
pletely as  to  leave  no  room  for  a  supplementary  female 
type  that  should  complete  the  ideal  of  Christian  humanity.  ^ 
It  sets  before  us  an  image  of  pure  beneficence,  disengaged 
from  all  peculiar  social  circumstances  which  would  dis- 
qualify a  character  from  being  universal  and  the  ideal,  yet 
adapted  to  all.  *  If  that  t}^3e  of  character  was  constructed 
by  human  intellect,  we  must  at  least  bear  in  mind  that 
"  it  was  constructed  at  the  confluence  of  three  races,  the 

1  On  some  supposed  Consequences  of  the  Doctrine  of  Historical  Progress: 
A  Lecture.     By  Goldwin  Smith,  M.A.     1861.— P.  15. 

^  Ihid.  p.  16.  3  /5,v^.  p.  17.  4  Hid. 


VL]       without  any  nari^owing  peculiarities,       2 1 7 

Jewish,  the  Greek,  and  the  Eoman,  each  of  which  had 
strong  national  peculiarities  of  its  own.  A  single  touch,  a 
single  taint  of  any  one  of  those  peculiarities,  and  the  char- 
acter would  have  been  national,  not  universal ;  transient, 
not  eternal.  It  might  have  been  the  highest  character  in 
history,  but  it  would  have  been  disqualified  for  being  the 
ideal."  Supposing  it  to  have  been  "  human,  whether  it 
were  the  effort  of  a  real  man  to  attain  moral  excellence,  or 
a  moral  imagination  of  the  wTiters  of  the  Gospels,  the 
chances,  surely,"  he  urges,  "  were  infinite  against  its 
escaping  any  tincture  of  the  fanaticism,  formalism,  and 
exclusiveness  of  the  Jew — of  the  political  pride  of  the 
Roman — of  the  intellectual  pride  of  the  Greek.  Yet  it 
escaped  them  all."  ^ 

In  like  manner,  the  character  before  us  in  the  Gospels 
cannot  possibly  be  regarded  as  a  reaction  from  something 
else  :  it  is  not  an  antinominian  protest  against  Pharisaism ; 
it  is  not  a  fanatical  patriotism  protesting  against  servility 
to  the  Roman  rule ;  it  is  not  an  exaggerated  cosmopolitan- 
ism in  revolt  against  the  narrow  patriotism  of  the  Jew :  it 
is  the  hi<^hest  self-denial,  without  havinf?  the  character  of 
a  formalized  asceticism;  it  is,  in  short,  "  the  essence  of 
man's  moral  nature,  clothed  with  a  personality  so  vivid  and 
intense  as  to  excite,  through  all  ages,  the  most  intense 
affection ;  yet  divested  of  all  those  peculiar  characteristics, 
the  accidents  of  place  and  time,  by  which  human  personali- 
ties are  marked."  "What  other  notion  than  this,"  asks 
1 1  hid.  p.  18. 


2i8    Astonishing  self -proclamation  of  J  esiis.  [Lect. 

the  writer,  "  can  pliilosoj^liy  form  of  Divinity  manifest  on 
earth  ?"i 

These  eloquent  and  sincere  words  of  Professor  Goldwin 
Smith  will  need  no  recommendation  or  comment.  And 
yet  they  suggest  a  question,  which  is  in  the  path  of  our 
subject,  and  wdiich,  under  any  circumstances,  cannot  be 
overlooked.  This  ideal  Character  of  the  Gospels  is,  on  one 
side,  at  issue  with  w^hat  we  should  abstractedly  conceive  to 
be  a  perfect  human  ideal.  For  He  who  presents  it  to  us 
proclaims  Himself,  in  terms  and  to  an  extent  wdiich  are  alto- 
gether inconsistent  with  any  true  ideal  of  a  purely  creaturely 
perfection.  In  the  words  of  another  writer  of  our  day, 
"  The  unbounded  personal  pretensions  which  Christ 
advances,  remain  throughout  a  subject  of  ever-recurring 
astonishment.  It  is  common,  in  human  history,  to  meet 
with  those  w^ho  claim  some  superiority  over  their  fellows. 
Men  assert  a  pre-eminence  over  their  fellow-citizens  or 
fellow-countrymen,  and  become  rulers  of  those  who  were 
at  first  their  equals;  but  they  dream  of  nothing  greater 
than  of  some  partial  control  over  the  actions  of  others  for 
the  short  space  of  a  lifetime.  Few,  indeed,  are  there  to 
whom  it  is  given  to  influence  future  ages.  Yet  some  men 
have  appeared  who  have  been  as  levers  to  uj)lift  the  earth 
and  roU  it  in  another  course.  Homer,  by  creating  litera- 
ture; Socrates,  by  creating  science;  Csesar,  by  carrying 
civilization  inward  from  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean ; 
Newton,  by  starting  science  upon  a  career  of  steady  j)ro- 
gress, — may  be  said  to  have  attained  this  eminence.  But 
1  Ibid.  p.  22. 


VI.]  ''  Christ's  discovery  is  Himself!'  219 

these  men  gave  a  single  impact,  like  that  which  is  con- 
ceived to  have  first  set  the  planets  in  motion:  Christ 
claims  to  be  a  perpetual  attractive  power,  like  the  sun, 
which  determines  their  orbit.  They  contributed  to  men 
some  discovery,  and  passed  away:  Christ's  discovery  is 
Himself.  To  humanity,  struggling  with  its  passions  and 
its  destiny,  He  says — '  Cling  to  Me :  cling  ever  closer  to 
]\ie.'  .  .  .  He  represented  himself  as  the  Light  of  the 
world,  as  the  Shepherd  of  the  souls  of  men,  as  the  Way  to 
immortality,  as  the  Vine  or  Life-Tree  of  humanity.  .  .  . 
He  commanded  men  to  leave  everything  and  attach  them- 
seh^es  to  Him ;  .  .  .  He  declared  Himself  King, 
Master,  and  Judge  of  men;  .  .  .  He  promised  to 
give  rest  to  all  the  weary  and  heavy-laden  ;  .  .  .  He 
instructed  His  followers  to  hope  for  life  from  feeding  on 
His  body  and  His  blood."  ^ 

If  this  statement  only  suggests  the  complete  truth,  it  is 
true  as  far  as  it  goes.  It  might  be  sustained  by  a  hundred 
texts.  That  which  is  so  striking,  so  overpowering  in  the 
Gospels,  is  perhaps  less  the  precise  language  which  our 
Lord  uses  about  Himself,  than  the  consistent  bearing  which 
He  assumes  towards  His  discij^les  and  mankind.  His 
attitude  is  that  of  One  Wlio  takes  His  claims  for  granted ; 
Who  has  no  errors  to  confess,  no  demands  to  explain,  or 
to  apologize  for;  no  restraining  instinct  of  self-distrust 
to  keep  Him  in  the  background;  no  shrinking  from  high 
command,  based  upon  a  sense  of  the  possible  superiority 

1  "Ecce  Homo,"  pp.  176-177. 


2  20  Language  of  Jeszis  Christ  [Lect. 

of  those  around  Him.  It  is  the  bearing  of  One  Who  claims 
to  be  the  First  of  all,  the  Centre  of  all,  with  entire  simpli- 
city indeed,  but  also  with  unhesitating  decision. 

Let  us  dwell  more  in  detail  upon  some  of  the  language 
which  Jesus  Christ  really  uses  about  Himself.  He  is 
greater  than  the  most  venerable  names  in  Jewish  antiquity; 
greater  than  the  men  whose  greatness  had  been  felt  most 
widely  and  deeply  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Israel.  He 
is  greater  than  Jonah,  whose  preaching  brouglit  Nineveh 
to  penitence  ;^  greater  than  Solomon,  in  whom  not 
Israel  only,  but  the  whole  East,  recognized  the  wisest 
of  men.-  Not  merely  is  He  David's  descendant;  He 
is  David's  Lord.^  When  Abraham  was  yet  unborn.  He 
was  already  in  existence.'^  Thus  He  could  refer  to 
"  the  glory  which  He  had  with  the  Father  before  the 
world  was,"  ^  and  to  the  fall  of  the  rebel-spirit,  which  he 
had  witnessed.^  God  is,  in  an  entirely  unique  sense.  His 
Father ;  '^  the  Jews  feel  that  He  uses  the  word  in  a  manner 
which  implies  a  tremendous  claim.  ^  For,  indeed.  He 
is  conscious  of  being  "  from  above,"  ^  of  having  "  come 
down  from  heaven,"  ^^  of  having  come  forth  from  being 

1  S.  Matt.  xii.  41.  2  s_  Matt.  xii.  42. 

3  S.  Matt.  xxii.  41-46  ;  Ps.  ex.  1. 

*  S.  John  viii.  56,  57,  58  ;  cf.  i.  15,  27,  30. 

^  S.  John  xvii.  5  ;  cf.  verse  24.  ^  S.  Luke  x.  18. 

^  S.  Matt.  X.  32  ;  XV.  13  ;  xvi.  17  ;  x^^ii.  19  ;  xxvi.  39,  42  ;  S.  Luke 
xxiii.  46  ;  xxiv.  49  ;  S.  John  v.  30  ;  x.  29  ;  xiv.  2,  6. 

^  S.  Jolm  V.  17-18,   irarepa  lSiov  ^Xeye  rbv  Qebv,  ccrop  eavTov  ttolQiv  ry  Geo?. 

®  S.  John  viii.  23,  eyCo  ck  tQu  &vu)  el/xi. 

^^  Ibid.  vi.  38,  Kara^e^rjKa  e/c  rod  ovpavov ;  v.  51.  6  e/c  rov  ovpavoO 
KaraBas. 


VI.]  about  Himself  and  His  claims.  221 

with  the  Father,  ^  of  having  come  forth  out  of  God.  -  He 
knows,  not  merely  that  He  lives;  but  that  He  has  in  Him- 
self, that  He  is,  the  Life;  Life  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the 
term, — perfect,  blessed,  absolute  existence ;  eternally  re- 
ceived from  the  Father,  yet  shared  with  Him  thus  from 
everlasting  to  everlasting.^  Although,  then.  He  is  visibly 
upon  the  earth.  He  is  still  really  in  Heaven.*  He  is 
united  to  the  Father  not  merely  by  a  moral,  but  by  a 
natural  union, ^  and  so  intimately,  that  "to  have  seen 
Him  is  to  have  seen  the  Father,^  to  have  known  Him 
is  to  have  known  the  Father."''  He  is  in  the  Father,  and 
the  Father  is  in  Him,  by  a  perfect  reciprocity.^  Of  the 
Father  He  only  has  adequate  knowledge:  He  Himself  is 
known  only  by  the  Father.  ^  As  a  consequence.  He  has 
all  thinc^s  in  common  with  the  Father.  ^  ^  Men,  whom  He 
wills  to  redeem,  are  already  His  own.  ^  ^  The  Kingdom  of 
God  is  His  Kingdom.  ^  ^  The  Angels  are  His  Angels.  ^  ^  The 
"  Church  of  the  Living  God"  ^^  is  His  Church. '  ^     Power  is 

^  Ihid.  xvi.  28,  i^i]\6ov  irapa  rod  irarpos,  Kai  iXrjXvda  els  top  koctixov. 

"^  Ibid.  viii.  42,  e/c  toO  Qeod  e^rfkdov  Kal  t/icw.  Cf.  S.  John  xvii.  8;  xvi. 
30 ;  Ps.  ii.  7 ;  Micah  v.  2. 

3  S.  John  V.  26  ;  xi.  25  ;  xiv.  6  ;  cf.  S.  John  i.  4  ;  1  S.  John  i.  1,  2  ;  v.  20. 

■*  S.  John  iii.  13,   6  vibs  toO  avOpdo-Kov  6  &v  ev  np  ovpav(^, 

^  S.  John  X.  28-30,  iyib  Kal  6  Trarrjp  ev  ecrfxev. 

«  Ibid.  xiv.  9.  ^  Ibid.  viii.  19. 

8  S.  John  xiv.  10  ;  xvii.  21,  22. 

»  S.  Matt.  xi.  27.  Cf.  S.  John  vi.  46,  6  cbv  irapa  tov  Qeov,  ovtos  e^hpaKe 
Tov  Trarepa.     Ibid.  x.  14,  15. 

10  S.  John  xvi.  15  ;  xvii.  10  ;  cf.  S.  Matt.  xi.  27  ;  Heb.  i.  3  ;  S.  Matt,  xxi, 
38  ;  Acts  X.  36.  ;  S.  John  i.  11. 

11  S.  John  X.  14,  15,  27,  28  ;  xvii.  10-12. 

12  S.  Matt.  xiii.  41 ;  S.  John  xviii.  36.     Cf.  S.  Luke  i.  33  ;  "Rev.  xi.  15. 

13  S.  Matt.  xiii.  41 ;  xvi.  27 ;  xxiv.  31.  i*  1  Tim.  iii.  15. 
16  S.  Matt.  xvi.  18  ;  cf.  Eom.  xvi.  16. 


222         Wotdd  oitr  Lord's  language  abottt    [Lect. 


given  Him  not  merely  over  the  human  race/  but  also  with- 
out any  assigned  limits  in  heaven  and  in  earth;  ^  and  the 
glory  with  which  He  will  appear  at  the  last  day  is  not 
other  than  His  Father's.  ^  His  working  in  the  sphere  of 
sense  and  time  corresponds  to  the  ceaseless  activity  of 
the  Father.*  He  too  quickens  and  will  raise  the  dead.^ 
He  too  forgives  sins,  as  to  the  Paralytic;^  He  too  will 
save  the  world ; ''  He  will  seek  and  save  the  lost ;  ^  He 
will  give  eternal  life.  ^  To  Him  all  judgment  is  committed, 
and  all  nations  shall  one  day  be  gathered  before  His 
Throne.  ^  °  Even  now  all  men  are  to  honour  Him,  even  as 
they  honour  the  Father.  ^  ^ 

His  words  are  familiar  to  our  ears;  but  do  we  dwell 
upon  their  real  and  awful  meaning  ?  What  should  we 
think  of  a  religious  teacher  now  who  could  permit  him- 
self to  say  that  Eternal  Life  consisted  in  the  knowledge 
of  himself  as  well  as  in  knowledge  of  the  Father  ;i2  that 
dislike  of  himself  implied  dislike  of  the  Father  ;^2  that 
belief  in  himself  secured  eternal  life;^*  that  disbelief  in 
himself  involved  present  condemnation?^^  What,  if  he 
should  teU  us  that  without  him  we  could  do  nothing  ;^^ 
that  united  with  him,  we  should  bring  forth  much  fruit  ;^'' 

1  S.  John  xvii.  2.  2  §_  Matt,  xxviii,  18.  ^  g  ^^tt.  xvi.  27. 

*  S.  John  V.  17,  19,  20.  ^  lUd.  verses  21,  28,  29;  xi.  25,  40. 

6  S.  Matt.  ix.  2-7  ;  S.  Luke  vii.  36-50.  '"  S.  John  iii.  17. 

s  S.  Luke  xix.  10  ;  ix.  56.  .      »  S.  John  xvii.  2. 

log,  John  V.  22,  27  ;  S.  Matt.  xxv.  31-39.     Cf.  Is.  xi.  3. 
11  S.  John  V.  20-23.  ^^  g  j^^j^^  ^vii.  3  ;  xii.  44. 

1 3  S.  John  XV.  23  ;  S.  Luke  x.  16.  ^  *  S.  John  iii.  16  ;  v.  40  ;  vi.  47. 

1 5  S.  John  iii.  18  ;  viii.  24.  ^  °  S.  John  xv.  5  ;  xiv.  6. 

1 7  S.  John  XV.  4. 


VL]        Himself  be  tolerable  in  any  other?         223 

that,  altliouoh  leavino-  this  world  before  us,  he  was  fjoiiifj 
to  prepare  places  for  us  in  the  Eternal  Home;^  that  his 
name  would  have  resistless  power  with  the  Father  5^  that 
in  his  name  his  pupils  would  cast  out  devils  f  that  he  would 
send  the  Divine  Spirit  from  the  Father  *  AYlio,  when  He 
came,  would  glorify  the  sender  ?  ^  What  should  we  say  of 
the  promise  of  a  perpetual  presence,^  of  the  pretension  to 
found  an  imperishable  society/  of  the  delegation  of  power 
to  forgive  sins,^  of  the  claim  to  be  so  faultless  that  in  him 
the  Prince  of  evil  had  no  part  whatever  ?  ^ 

Much  else  to  the  same  purpose  might  be  quoted  from 
the  three  earlier  Gospels,  as  well  as  from  the  last;  and 
the  question  arises,  how  we  are  to  account  for  this  earnest 
self-assertion  on  the  part  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  explain  such 
language  ?  How  are  we  to  adjust  it,  on  the  one  hand,  with 
the  sobriety  and  truthfulness  of  a  perfect  human  character ; 
on  the  other,  with  a  due  recognition  of  the  rights  of  God  ? 

There  are  men  who  decline  to  entertain  this  inquiry. 
They  are  not  by  any  means  forgetful  of  God.  He  weighs 
upon  their  conscience,  upon  their  imagination,  upon  their 
life  of  daily  thought  and  action,  as  the  greatest  and  most 
solemn  of  all  facts.  They  are  not  insensible  to  the  moral 
beauties  of  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  Christ;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  profess  to  be  so  enamoured  of  these  beauties,  or  of 

1  S.  John  xiv.  2,  3.  -  Hid.  xvi.  23  ;  xiv.  13, 14. 

3  S.  Mark  xvi.  17,  18  ;  cf.  20.  ''  S.  John  xvi.  7. 

">  S.  John  xvi.  14.  *'  S.  Matt,  xxviii.  20.  ^  S.  Matt.  xvi.  18. 

8  S.  John  XX.  21-23  ;  S.  Matt.  xvi.  19  ;  xviii.  18. 

»  S.  John  xiv.  30. 


2  24  Our  LorcTs  self-proclamatioit        [Lect. 

some  of  them,  as  to  be  impatient  of  all  other  aspects  of  our 
Lord's  Work  and  Teaching,  But  they  do  not  allow  them- 
selves to  reflect  steadily  upon  the  question  whether  their 
loyalty  to  the  supreme  rights  of  God,  and  their  love  for 
Jesus  Christ,  do  not  alike  oblige  them  to  "  consider  the  re- 
lation which  exists  between  Christ  and  God."  Christian 
theology  appears  to  them  in  the  light  of  a  wanton  importa- 
tion of  worthless  metaphysics  into  the  heart  of  a  moral 
history  of  simple  and  faultless  beauty;  but  they  do  not 
reflect  that  their  moral  ideal  itself  must  fall  to  pieces,  unless 
they  are  prepared  in  some  way  to  attempt  the  chief  problem 
with  which  Christian  theology  deals. 

Is  our  Lord's  language  imposture  ?  The  suggestion  can 
only  be  mentioned  to  be  condemned  by  the  entire  drift  and 
atmosphere  of  His  Life.  Is  it  the  hallucination  of  an  en- 
thusiast, so  entranced  in  his  idea  as  to  be  insensible  to  the 
world  of  facts  around  him  ?  But  even  Channing  has  pointed 
out  that  the  enthusiasm  takes  a  turn  which  would  be  incon- 
ceivable, for  a  deranged  enthusiasm,  under  the  circum- 
stances of  Jesus  Christ :  "  I  can  conceive,"  he  says,  "  of  His 
seating  Himself,  infancy,  on  the  throne  of  David,  and  secretly 
pondering  the  means  of  His  appointed  triumphs;  but  that 
a  Jew  should  fancy  himself  the  Messiah,  and  at  the  same 
time  should  strip  that  character  of  all  the  attributes  that 
fired  his  youthful  imagination  and  heart ;  that  he  should 
start  aside  from  all  the  feelings  and  hopes  of  His  age,  and 
should  acquire  a  consciousness  of  being  destined  to  a 
wholly  new  career,  and  one  as  unbounded  as  it  was  new — 


VI.]    unlike  miy thing  in  the  Hebrczv  Prophets.    225 

this  is  exceedingly  improbable."  ^  Was  it,  then,  only  the 
natural  manner  of  an  oriental  mind ;  the  habit  of  seizin^r 
truth  intuitively  and  enunciating  it  authoritatively,  in 
contrast  with  our  vvestern  methods  of  demonstration 
and  argument  ?  But  this  explanation,  even  if  on  other 
accounts  it  could  be  admitted,  does  not  cover  the  ground 
required.  It  does  not  justify  the  actual  substance  and 
contents  of  our  Lord's  language  about  Himself  It  does 
not  explain  the  fact  that  His  language  about  Himself  is 
unlike  anything  which  we  find  in  the  Hebrew  prophets. 
The  prophets,  if  you  will,  announce  truth  in  the  intuitive 
manner ;  but  they  do  not  make  themselves  the  subjects  and 
centres  of  the  truth  which  they  announce.  They  draw  the 
deepest  distinctions  between  themselves  and  their  Master : 
they  are  sinners,  and  He  is  the  All-holy;  they  are  foolish 
and  incapable.  He  is  All-powerful  and  All- wise.  The  rela- 
tion in  which  Christ  claims  to  stand,  both  towards  the 
Father  and  towards  mankind,  is  utterly  unanticipated  by 
anything  that  can  be  traced  in  the  prophetic  literature  of 
Israel;  it  reveals  a  Personality  distinct  in  kind  from  any 
that  had  previously  appeared  in  Hebrew  history. 

And  at  this  point  we  cannot  but  observe  that  our  Lord's 
language  about  Himself  is  entirely  in  harmony  with  the 
character  of  certain  of  the  miracles  ascribed  to  Him  in  the 
Gospels.  The  miraculous  element  cannot  be  weeded  out 
of  the  Gospel  narratives,  without  altogether  impugning  tlie 
historical  value  of  those  documents ;  and  to  do  this  mainly 

^  Clianning  :  Works,  ii.  56, 

Q 


2  26  Our  L ord^s  m trades  illustrate  His  words.  [Lect. 

because  one  department  or  one  age  of  human  experience 
does  not  positively  correspond  with  what  we  know  as  yet 
about  another,  is  not  reasonable.  Now,  the  Gospel  miracles 
fall,  speaking  roughly,  into  two  classes;  they  are  acts  of 
mercy,  or  acts  of  power.  In  one  sense,  they  are  all  acts  of 
power;  but  the  motive  of  compassion  towards  human  suffer- 
ing apparently  predominates  in  the  one  class ;  while,  in  the 
other,  the  reason  for  working  them  must  be  chiefly  looked 
for  in  the  need  of  demonstrating  the  personal  power  of  the 
Agent.  Thus,  among  the  miracles  of  mercy,  there  are  seven- 
teen cases  on  record  of  His  healing  bodily  disease;  there  are 
six  cases  of  the  cure  of  demoniacal  possession,  each  of  which 
is  described  in  detail;  there  are  three  cases  of  restoration  to 
life.  On  the  other  hand,  the  miracles  at  Cana  in  Galilee, 
and  of  feeding  the  four  and  the  five  thousand,  suggest,  first 
of  all,  the  creative  power  of  the  Worker,  although  it  was 
wielded  with  a  philanthropic  object.  The  element  of  power 
is  more  distinctly  and  exclusively  apparent  in  His  stilling 
the  tempest,  and  walking  on  the  sea ;  in  His  rendering  Him- 
seK  invisible  to  a  hostile  multitude;  in  His  awing  by  a 
glance  the  traders  in  the  temple,  and  the  multitude  that 
came  to  take  Him;  in  His  cursing  the  barren  fig-tree.  Some 
of  this  class  of  miracles  are,  in  fact,  objected  to  by  a  recent 
writer,  1  on  the  specific  ground  that  they  only  befit  a 
superhuman  personality.  We  therefore  do  not  strain  the 
import  of  such  miracles  in  saying  that  they  are,  at  least,  in 
harmony  with  Christ's  language  about  His  claims  and  His 
superhuman  Person. 

^  Schenkel :  Charactertild  Jesu.      Absch.  iv.,  Kap.  11,  p.  123. 


VL]  Significance  of  His  sinlessness.  227 

But  our  Lord's  references  to  Himself  are  also  iu  keeping 
with  another  phenomenon.  He  was  sinless.  Upon  the 
positive  side  of  Christ's  character  we  have  already  dwelt ; 
upon  the  balanced  perfection,  the  ideal  universality  of  the 
type.  It  was  a  life  such  as  Paganism  had  not  conceived ; 
it  was  higher  than,  and  distinct  from,  the  unimpeachable 
justice,  the  calm  superiority  to  misfortune,  the  proud  self- 
respect,  which  constituted,  in  various  proportions,  the 
Pagan  ideal.  It  was  a  life  of  love  and  humility,  of  the 
highest  forms  of  holiness,  expressed  by  example  as  well  as 
recommended  by  precept.  But  the  most  startling  moral 
feature  in  this  life  is  that  we  can  trace  nowhere  in  it 
any — the  faintest — consciousness  of  guilt.  The  best  men 
ordinarily  feel  the  taint  of  moral  evil  most  constantly  and 
acutely :  their  language  about  their  sins  and  shortcomings 
seems  even  exaggerated  to  those  who  live  at  a  greater 
distance  from  the  Source  of  sanctity  than  they  themselves. 
But  Jesus  challenges  His  enemies  to  convince  Him  of  sin, 
if  they  can.  He  never  hints  that  He  has  done  or  said 
any  one  thing  which  needs  forgiveness.  He  teaches  His 
disciples  to  pray,  "  Forgive  us  our  trespasses :"  He  never 
prays  for  pardon  Himself.  Sorrow  makes  aU  of  us  think 
of  that  in  our  past  lives,  which,  as  conscience  whispers, 
has  but  too  well  deserved  it :  Jesus,  in  His  sorrow,  thinks 
only  of  the  sins  of  others.  Certainly  He  is  tempted  ;  but 
there  is  nothing  within  Him  that  can  respond  to  the 
temptation :  He  is  "  holy,  harmless,  undefiled,  separate 
from  sinners."     And  no  attempts  to  fasten  sin  upon  Him 


2  28  Christ  only  sinless,  if  He  [Lect. 

have  had  a  trace  of  success,  except  so  far  as  they  have 
gone  hand  in  hand  with  a  denial  of  His  personal  claims. 
Strauss,  for  example,  thinks  it  not  merely  fanaticism,  but 
"  unjustifiable  self-exaltation,  for  a  man  to  imagine  himself 
so  separated  from  other  men,  as  to  set  himself  before  them 
as  their  future  judge."  ^  Strauss,  we  must  admit,  is  per- 
fectly right,  if  the  claim  of  Christ  to  judge  the  world  is 
not  strictly  based  upon  fact.  It  is  strictly  impossible  to 
maintain  our  faith  in  the  faultlessness  of  His  character 
if  we  deny  that  a  fundamental  necessity  of  His  Being 
forced  Him  to  draw  attention  so  persistently,  so  imperiously, 
to  Himself.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  His  words  about 
Himself  are  sober  truth,  they  only  afford  another  illustra- 
tion of  His  compassionate  love  for  those  whom  He  came 
to  enlighten  and  to  save. 

Doubtless  it  has  been  a  favourite  object  with  a  modern 
school,  as  men  have  said,  "  to  bring  down  Jesus  from 
the  clouds,  and  to  restore  Him,  by  criticism,  to  the  domain 
of  history."  This  enterprise  assumes  that  "  the  theological 
and  metaphysical  Christ  of  the  creeds,"  is  a  very  different 
person  from  "  the  living  Christ  of  the  Gospels."  But  when 
such  criticism  enters  upon  its  task,  what  happens  ?  If,  in- 
stead of  declaiming  vaguely  against  dogma,  men  really 
wish  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  this  problem,  they  will  find 
that,  of  two  things,  one  becomes  absolutely  necessary.  Either 
they  must  consent  to  forfeit  the  moral  ideal  which  they 
admire  in  the  Gospels,  and  which,  to  do  them  justice,  they 

^  Leben  Jesu  fiir  das  Deutsche  Volk,  p.  242. 


VI.]  is  hi  deed  Divine.  229 

are  sincerely  anxious  to  preserve ;  or  they  must  fall  back 
upon  those  very  statements  of  the  creeds  which,  by  affirm- 
ing Christ's  personal  Divinity,  really  and  only  justify  His 
constant  references  to  Himself,  and  His  unbounded  claims 
upon  mankind.  His  precepts  about  humility  are  contradicted 
by  His  example,  unless  His  statements  about  Himself  are 
dictated  by  that  true  humility  which  would  rather  incur 
the  suspicion  of  pride  than  conceal  the  simple  fact.  His 
enforcement  of  sincerity  ceases  to  awe  us,  if,  in  His  language 
about  Himself,  He  was  indeed  guilty  of  consistent  and 
almost  boundless  exaggeration.  His  very  charity  loses  its 
lustre,  and  becomes  suspected,  if  we  are  forced  to  feel  that 
He  is  ever  capable  of  putting  Himself  unduly  forward  ;  its 
highest  forms  cease  to  represent  in  our  eyes  the  Universal 
Love ;  they  remind  us  rather  of  the  efforts  of  this  or  that 
tribune  of  the  people,  who  clothes  a  personal  ambition 
beneath  the  activities  of  an  ostentatious  disinterestedness, 
and  w^hose  efforts  are  at  last  crowned  by  a  catastrophe 
which  they  have  really  deserved. 

H,  on  the  other  hand,  we  bow  before  the  general  impression 
produced  by  Christ's  character,  and  He  be  taken  at  His 
word.  He  must  be  believed  to  be,  in  the  absolute  sense, 
Divine.  There  is  no  room  for  an  intermediate  being,  such 
as  Arianism  imagined,  who  is  neither  God  nor  an  angel,  in 
a  serious  theistic  creed.  And  our  Lord's  words  are  strictly 
inconsistent  with  what  would  be  sober  and  true  in  any 
creature,  however  exalted.  They  are  not  surpassed ;  they 
are   only  unfolded  by  the  later  teaching  of  apostles  and  of 


230  Harmony  of  revealed  truth.  [Lect. 

creeds.  The  Christ  of  S.  Paul's  Epistles  is  really  the 
Christ  of  the  earliest  Evangelist ;  the  Christ  of  S.  John 
is  the  Christ  of  S.  Paul ;  the  Christ  of  the  Creeds 
and  the  great  Councils  is  the  Christ  of  S.  John.  He 
Who  alone  knows  the  Eather,  and  Whom  none  but  the 
Father  knoAvs/  is  the  Image  of  tlie  Father,  ^  is  in  the  Form 
of  God,^  is  the  Effulgence  of  God's  glory  and  the  exact 
Impress  of  His  Being/  is  over  all  God  blessed  for  ever.  ^  He, 
the  only  Begotten  Son,  or  God,  Which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  6  isof  one  substance  with  the  Father,'^  as  being  "God 
of  the  substance  of  the  Father,  bes^otten  before  all  worlds."^ 
The  later  statements  may  be  more  elaborate;  but  they  are 
implied,  in  all  their  completeness,  by  the  earlier.  Just  as 
an  anatomist,  from  his  knowledge  of  the  animal  frame,  can 
pronounce  upon  the  age  and  size  of  a  skeleton  of  which  he 
only  possesses  the  fragment  of  a  single  bone;  so  with  our 
eye  upon  S.  John,  and  the  Nicene  confession,  we  can  see 
statements  in  S.  Mark  which  can  only  be  maintained  when 
men  acknowledge  the  consubstantiality  of  the  Son  with  the 
Father.  There  are  deep  harmonies  in  truth  which,  from 
first  to  last,  bind  it  in  its  integrity  rigidly  together. 
They  cannot  be  set  aside  or  trifled  with;  for  truths  which 
we  in  our  narrowness  deem  obscure  or  unimportant,  are 
often  vitally  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  others 
which  we  are  batter  capable  of  appreciating.  Our 
Blessed  Lord's  Divinity,    instead   of   obscuring  His   true 

1  S.  Matt.  xi.  29.  2  Col.  i.  15.  ^  p^ii.  ii.  6.         *  Heb.  i.  3. 

^  Rom.  ix.  5.  6  g_  joi^n  i.  IS.       ^  Nic.  Creed.        ^Athan.  Creed. 


VL]         What  is  "  the  religion  of  Christ?''  231 

Manhood,  is  the  safeguard  and  justification  of  its  moral 
perfectness :  and  we  do  the  most  beautiful  of  moral  histories 
a  fatal  injustice,  if  we  forget  that,  in  the  words  of  the 
Creed,  its  subject  "  is  perfect  God  and  perfect  Man,  of  a 
reasonable  soul  and  human  flesh  subsisting ;  equal  to  the 
Father  as  touching  His  Godhead,  and  inferior  to  the  Father 
as  touching  His  manhood  ;  Who,  although  He  be  God  and 
Man,  yet  is  He  not  two,  but  one  Christ."^ 

This  is  the  full  and  solemn  truth ;  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  not  merely  the  Teacher  but  the  substance  of  Christianity  ; 
not  merely  the  author  of  the  faith  which  Christians 
profess,  but  its  central  object.  For  Christians  the  popular 
phrase,  "  the  religion  of  Christ,"  does  not  mean,  as 
Lessing  suggested,  only  or  chiefly  the  piety  which  in 
the  days  of  His  flesh  He  exhibited  towards  the  Father. 
It  means  the  piety,  the  submission  of  thought  and  heart, 
the  sense  of  obligation,  the  voluntary  enthusiastic  service, 
of  which  He,  together  and  equally  with  the  Father,  is 
the  rightful  and  everlasting  Object ;  which,  when  He  was 
on  earth.  He  claimed  as  His  due ;  and  which  has  been 
rendered  to  Him  now  for  more  than  eighteen  hundred 
years  by  the  best  and  noblest  of  the  human  race. 

^  Athanasian  Creed. 


232  Jesus  the  liviiig  bond  [Lect. 


III. 


In  Jesus  Christ,  then,  we  have  the  guarantee  or  bond  of 
religion ;  He  is  the  means  of  an  actual  communication 
between  the  soul  of  man  and  the  Eternal  God.  ''  There  is 
one  Mediator  between  God  and  men,  the  man  Christ 
Jesus."  ^  He  is  the  Mediation  in  virtue  of  the  very  terms 
of  His  Being :  His  office  of  Mediation  is  based  upon  the 
two  Natures  which  are  united  in  His  Single  Person.  On 
the  one  hand,  as  the  Eternal  Son,  He  is  One  with  the 
All-Holy  and  Infinite  God ;  on  the  other,  as  the  child  of 
Mary,  He  shares  all  the  finiteness  and  weakness  of  our 
manhood;  He  shares  everything  with  it  except  its  sin. 
Thus  He  impersonates  and  maintains,  by  the  very  fact 
of  being  what  He  is,  a  true  vital  bond  between  earth  and 
heaven.  To  us  men,  He  is  the  last  and  most  complete 
unveiling  of  the  interest  which  God  takes  in  the  well- 
being  of  His  moral  and  reasonable  creatures ;  the  Highest 
Organ  of  the  Divine  Mind  and  Will ;  the  only  and  certain 
channel  of  those  "  unsearchable  riches  "  ^  which  flow  down 
from  the  Fountain  of  all  goodness  upon  the  beings  whom 
He  has  made.  Before  the  Majesty  of  God  He  is  the 
unique  and  ideal  Eepresentative  of  our  race  :  He  represents 
us,  not  as  being  what  we  are,  but  as  being  what  we  were 
meant  to  be  by  the  Great  Author  of  our  existence.  And 
yet,  although  we  are  only  weak  and  sinful,  we  may  unite 
ourselves  to  Him  by  faith,  and  love,  and  contrition  for  the 
1  1  Tim.  ii.  5.  2  j^pi,  iii,  8. 


VL]  between  God  and  the  Soul.  233 

past,  and  be  *'  accepted  in  the  Beloved."  ^  His  obedience 
as  Man,  reaching  its  climax  in  the  self-sacrifice  of  the 
Cross,  becomes  ours  through  His  free  grace  and  mercy. 
His  inviqoratinfT  life,  which  restores  our  race  to  its 
original  strength  and  beauty,  is  still  communicated  to  us 
by  His  Spirit  and  His  Sacraments ;  so  that  all  who  will, 
may  "  put  off  the  old  man,  wdiich  is  corrupt  according  to 
the  deceitful  lusts ;  and  be  renewed  in  the  spirit  of  their 
minds;  and  put  on  the  new  man,  which  after  God  is 
created  in  righteousness  and  true  holiness."  -  This  cannot 
be  done  by  fallen  man  for  himself,  and  out  of  the  resources 
of  his  warped  and  im^^overished  nature.  But  "  what  the 
law  could  not  do,  in  that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh, 
God  sending  His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh, 
and  for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh ;  that  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  law  mi^ht  be  fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not  after 
the  flesh,  but  after  the  Spirit."  ^  Being  as  He  is.  Divine 
as  well  as  Human,  Jesus  is  "  made  unto  us  Wisdom,  and 
Eighteousness,  and  Sanctification,  and  Eedemption."'^  Thus 
in  union  with  Him,  those  religious  aspirations,  which 
are  part  of  our  natural  outfit,  find  their  true  exercise,  their 
full  satisfaction.  As  the  Light  of  the  world,  He  is  the 
satisfaction  of  the  intellect.  As  "  Fairer  than  the  children 
of  men,"  He  is  the  delight  of  the  heart.  As  "  Holy,  harm- 
less, undefiled,  separate  from  sinners/'  He  challenges  the 
submission  of  the  will.  Intellect,  feeling,  moral  effort, 
each  have  their  part  in  Him.     He  recognizes.  He  con- 

1  Eph.  i.  tj.         '-^  Eph.  iv.  22  21.         3  Rom.  viii.  3,  4.         M  Cor.  i.  30. 


234  Dijficulties  of  revelation  [Lect. 

secrates  them.  He  leads  them  upwards,  in  and  through 
His  own  Holy  Humanity  to  the  All-wise  and  All-beautiful. 
The  soul  finds  that  in  Him  "  is  the  well  of  Life,  and  that 
in  His  Light  it  will  see  light." 

Does  it  seem  inconceivable  that  the  Eternal  Son  of  God 
should  have,  indeed,  thus  come  among  us  men,  to  teach 
and  to  save  us ;  to  make  reconciliation  between  us  and  the 
Almighty  Father ;  to  bestow  on  us  the  priceless  gift  of  a 
new  Nature ;  and  to  lead  us  back,  first  one  and  then  another, 
to  our  true  home  and  peace  ?  Certainly,  it  may  w^ell  move 
our  wonder  to  think  of  such  grace  and  mercy.  The  Chris- 
tian creed,  when  once  it  becomes  precious  to  us,  takes  us 
altogether  out  of  the  daily  range  of  earthly  thoughts  and 
interests,  lifting  us  into  a  better,  and  brighter,  but  not 
more  mysterious,  or  less  real,  w^orld  than  this.  The  Incar- 
nation and  Death  of  the  Everlasting  Son  seem  impossible, 
only  because  we  do  not  steadily  reflect  upon  the  simple 
but  momentous  truths  which  lie  at  the  root  of  all  reliG^ion, 
and  which  all  wlio  are  not  Materialists  or  Pantheists 
generally  admit.  Is  the  Incarnation  so  improbable,  think 
you,  if  God  is  indeed  a  moral  Being,  if  man  has  an  immortal 
soul,  if  moral  evil  is  inherently  deadly  in  itself  and  in  its 
effects  ?  Do  we  not  name  "  God,"  "  immortality,"  ''  sin," 
without  thinking  what  we  mean ;  as  if  these  tremendous 
words  w^ere  the  symbols  of  trivial  commonplaces,  wdiich 
implied  nothing  beyond  themselves  ?  And  is  not  this 
careless  treatment  of  these  solemn  truths  which  we  profess 
to  own,  the  reason  why  many  of  us  do  not  understand  the 


YL]  not  gj^eater  than  those  of  7iaticr at  religion.  235 

truths  beyond  them  ?  If  the  awfuhiess  and  magnificence  of 
God,  the  reality  of  eternity,  the  power  and  sting  of  moral  evil, 
were  more  often  subjects  of  our  thought,  would  our  imagina- 
tions be  so  startled,  as  they  often  are,  by  those  doctrines  of 
grace  which  adjust  and  harmonize  what  else  is  so  full  of 
perplexity ;  by  the  Incarnation  of  the  Blessed  Son  of  God ; 
by  His  plenary  Atonement  on  the  Cross  for  the  sins  of 
men;  by  His  unceasing  Intercession  for  us  before  the 
Father ;  by  the  sanctifying  energy  of  His  Holy  Spirit ;  by 
the  power  of  His  Sacraments,  to  renew  and  sustain  our 
life  ?  Surely  the  earlier  truths  are  just  as  full  of  difficul- 
ties for  the  imagination  and  the  reason  as  the  latter.  We 
put  them  out  of  sight  as  being  less  importunate ;  but  there 
they  are.  That  the  All-foreseeing  and  Holy  God  should 
have  created  us  at  all,  is  at  least  as  startling  as  that,  hav- 
ing created,  He  should  have  redeemed  us.  Or  rather, 
when  we  reflect  upon  His  morality,  upon  His  justice,  upon 
His  love,  we  must  think  that  His  Eedemption  of  the  fallen 
is  really  less  wonderful  than  His  Creation  of  a  race 
capable  of  such  signal  failure ;  and  we  must  find  in  our 
daily  experience  of  life,  of  the  crimes  and  sufferings,  which 
so  largely  compose  it,  more  embarrassment  and  distress  for 
reverent  reason  than  can  be  furnished  by  critical  specula- 
tions upon  the  explanatory  and  consoling  truth,  tliat  "  God 
so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  on  Him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life."^ 

^  S.  John  iii.  16. 


236  Why  the  evidences  of  Christianity      [Lect. 

"  Whosoever  believeth  in  Him."  It  is  not  then,  you  say, 
a  matter  of  strict  mathematical  demonstration.  No ;  it  is 
not  a  matter  of  strict  mathematical  demonstration.  If  it 
were,  there  would  be  no  more  room  for  faith  than  there  is 
in  the  process  of  learning  a  proposition  of  Euclid.  Not  to 
acquiesce  in  the  conclusion  of  a  proposition  of  Euclid,  is 
to  he  intellectually  deficient ;  but  to  refuse  assent  to  the 
Christian  creed  does  not  necessarily  imply  intellectual 
deficiency.  Why  not  ?  Because  for  such  assent  moral 
dispositions  are  necessary  as  well  as  intellectual  capa- 
city. The  evidence  for  Christianity,  intellectually  viewed, 
is  something  short  of  mathematical ;  and  intentionally  so. 
Christian  truth  makes  a  demand  upon  the  will  as  well  as 
upon  the  intellect;  and  the  will,  to  avoid  the  foreseen  con- 
sequences of  assent,  will  often  prevent  the  intellect  from 
doing  its  work,  honestly  and  thoroughly,  in  investigating 
the  claims  of  Christ.  This  is  a  reason  why  so  much 
store  is  set  upon  faith  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  Eaith  is  a 
test  of  the  moral  drift  of  our  wliole  being,  and  not  merely 
of  the  soundness  or  acuteness  of  our  understandings.  If  an 
act  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  implied  no  more  than  an  act 
of  assent  to  the  conclusion  of  a  demonstrated  proposition ; 
if  faith  were  nothing  higher  and  nobler  than  the  forced 
result  of  a  victorious  assault  upon  the  human  understand- 
ing, conducted  by  columns  and  batteries  of  mathematical 
evidence ;  then  all  that  is  said  about  its  moral  and  spiritual 
worth,  about  its  purifying  and  elevating  power,  would  be 
simply  unintelligible.     The  most  accomplished  mathema- 


VL]  are  not  viathematical.  ~       237 

tician  is  not  necessarily  moral ;  and  tlie  most  fervent  be- 
lievers, ancient  or  modern,  have  not  been  always  Pascals 
and  Newtons. 

Our  Lord  did,  indeed,  by  His  miracles,  and  notably  by 
His  resurrection,  address  Himself  to  the  experience  of  His 
contemporaries  in  enforcing  His  claims ;  and  by  certain 
portions  of  His  teaching.  He  appealed  no  less  truly  to  the 
operations  of  their  natural  reason.  But,  in  order  to  accept 
Him  as  He  is,  reason  and  observation  must  be  seconded  by 
the  heart  and  the  conscience.  There  must  be  a  ti^ue  desire 
to  know  all  that  can  be  known  of  the  Author  of  the  law  of 
right  and  wrong  within  us.  There  must  be  a  real  auxiety 
to  escape  from  the  moral  anomalies  of  life ;  a  recognition, 
and  sense  of  human  goodness  ;  a  strong  anticipation  that  He 
Who  is  its  Source  cannot  have  left  us  in  weakness  and 
darkness  to  struggle  alone.  Why  this  temper  is  found  in 
one  man  and  not  in  another,  is  a  question  which  carries  us 
back  into  the  deepest  secrets  of  our  several  moral  natures ; 
into  the  varying  histories  of  our  loyalty  or  disloyalty  to 
God's  original  gift  of  natural  light.  But  upon  the  exist- 
ence or  non-existence  of  such  moral  dispositions  depends 
our  way  of  looking  at  the  evidence  which  Jesus  Christ  has 
thought  good  to  set  before  us  on  behalf  of  His  claims.  In 
one  case  that  evidence  will  appear  sufficient ;  insufficient 
in  another.  It  will  be  held  insufficient  by  the  man 
who  thinks  to  become  a  believing  Christian,  as  he 
would  become  a  mathematician,  without  any  reference  to 
the  temper  of  his  heart,  or  even  in  spite  of  its  decided 


238    Faith  in  otc7'-  Lord's  Divi7iity  the  basis  [IjECT. 

bent  against  the  moral  teaching  of  the  Gospel  It  will 
be  deemed  sufficient — nay,  more  than  sufficient — for  those 
who  amid  perplexities  are  "  waiting  for  the  consolation 
of  Israel."  ^  They  understand  that  religious  truth,  to  be 
embraced  at  all  to  any  purpose,  must  be  embraced, 
not  simply  by  a  dry  assent  of  the  logical  understand- 
ing, but  by  a  vital  act  of  the  whole  inward  man;  by 
moral  sympathies  even  more  earnestly  than  by  an  intel- 
lectual grasp.  Christ,  our  Lord,  in  various  ways,  teaches 
us  as  much  as  this ;  and  Christian  apologists  can  only 
make  that  portion  of  the  act  of  faith  which  belongs  to 
the  understanding  easier  to  it,  by  removing  obstacles  to 
the  reception  of  truth  or  by  exhibiting  its  inward  har- 
monies. They  cannot,  if  they  would,  do  the  work  of  the 
Divine  Spirit,  and  control  the  fevers,  the  prejudices,  the 
cowardice,  the  rashness  of  the  heart.  He  only  Who  made 
the  heart  can  soften,  or  subdue,  or  change  it.  He  only 
Who  made  the  light  to  shine  out  of  darkness  can  so  shine 
in  the  hearts  of  men,  as  to  "give  tlie  light  of  the  know- 
ledge of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ."  2 

And  they  to  whom  He  has  taughtthis  great  lesson  will  know 
and  feel,  that  believing  in  the  Divinity  of  our  Incarnate  Lord, 
we  stand,  as  it  were,  upon  the  heights  of  Pisgah ;  and  that 
a  new  and  vast  prospect,  grateful  to  eyes  that  are  wearied 
with  the  long  glare  of  the  desert,  is  opening  before  us. 
Before  us  is  a  land  of  vineyards  and  oliveyards;  a  land 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey.     It  is  a  region  of  repose 

1  S.  Luke  ii.  25.  2  2  Cor.  iv.  6. 


YL]  of  practical  religion.  239 

for  faith  and  love ;  it  is  an  atmosphere  where  communion 
with  God  is  easy  and  natural.  It  is  the  proper  home  of 
spirituality  and  benevolence,  of  that  internal  and  external 
practice  of  religion,  day  by  day,  which  is  so  altogether 
higher  and  better  a  thing  than  the  profoiindest  study  of 
its  theory.  For  the  Divinity  of  the  Son  of  God  is  the 
adequate  warrant  of  all  His  promises ;  of  the  power  of  His 
death ;  of  the  gift  of  His  Spirit ;  of  the  efficacy  of  His 
sacraments ;  of  the  converting  and  hallowing  power  of  His 
written  word ;  of  the  Divine  character  of  that  society  of 
souls  which,  by  His  Spirit,  He  has  organized  into  His 
Church  since  the  Day  of  Pentecost.  How  vast  in  their 
range,  how  interesting  in  their  idea  and  scope,  how  ener- 
getically practical  in  their  bearings  on  all  earnest  life, 
are  these  great  Christian  doctrines  which  form  the  hills 
and  vales  of  our  Gospel  Land  of  Promise  !  We  strain  our 
eyes ;  we  would  fain  go  forward  to  study  their  beauties, 
to  try,  if  it  might  be,  to  understand  and  to  surmount  their 
difficulties.  But  it  cannot  be ; — at  least  now.  If  only  we 
sincerely  cling  by  faith  and  love  to  our  Divine  and  Human 
Lord,  all  else  will  follow.  For  the  present,  like  the 
Magdalen,  we  can  but  hold  Him  by  the  feet,  and  entreat 
Him  to  teach  us  that  personal  devotedness  to  Himself, 
which  is  the  secret  and  soul  of  genuine  religion;  since 
without  it  the  love  of  God  soon  dies  away  into  an  attenu- 
ated mysticism,  while  the  love  of  man  is  eventually  hol- 
lowed out  into  a  mechanical  philanthropy.  Thinking  of 
Him,  praying  to  Him,  working  for  Him  day  by  day,  as 


240  Conclusion.  [Lect. 

our  living,  tender,  mighty,  and  wise  Friend,  we  strengthen 
our  hold  upon  the  one  certain  bond  between  earth  and 
heaven;  upon  Him  through  AVhom,  in  all  our  feebleness  and 
sin,  we  have  real  access  in  one  Spirit  unto  the  Father.^ 


Personal  devotion  to  Jesus  Christ  is  the  exercise  of 
thouglit,  and  of  affection,  steadily  directed  upon  His  ador- 
able Person.  But  it  is  also  the  exercise  of  will:  it  is  pre- 
eminently practical.  There  is  much  to  be  abstained  from 
for  His  sake;  there  is  much  to  be  done  and  to  be  endured; 
there  is  some  danger,  perhaps,  of  our  doing  nothing  very 
definite,  where  the  opportunities  of  action  are  so  various 
and  so  complex.  And,  therefore,  that  you  may  do  some- 
thing for  Jesus  Christ  now  and  here,  you  are  asked  to 
support  with  your  alms  the  St.  James'  Penitentiary.  Its 
object  is  to  carry  out  our  Lord's  work  in  the  w^orld  as  the 
Healer  of  souls,  whom  sin  has  separated  from  God,  by 
bringing  them  back  to  purity  and  peace  through  a  re- 
covered union  with  Himself  It  has  been  said  that  Peni- 
tentiaries are  too  costly  a  method  of  restoration  from  sin. 
They  who  speak  thus  can  have  thought  little  to  any  pur- 
pose about  either  the  malignity  of  moral  evil,  or  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Self-sacrifice  of  the  Son  of  God.  The  institu- 
tion  Avhich  I  have  named  has  done  and  is  doing  good,  and, 
as  we  trust,  lasting  work  among  our  unhappy  sisters,  who 
may  well  be  so  much  less  guilty  in  the  eyes  of  the 
1  Eph.  ii.  18. 


VL]  Conchtsioii,  241 

Eternal  Justice  than  are  many  upon  whom,  in  this  present 
world,  and  often  to  their  own  endless  loss,  the  breath  of 
censure  never  falls.  Be  our  case  what  it  may,  we  surely 
do  well  to  support  an  undertaking  which  honours  our 
Lord,  by  its  disinterested  work  of  unwearied  compassion ; 
and  which,  while  labouring  for  the  social  recovery  of  our 
poor  countrywomen,  aims  much  more  directly  at  promoting 
the  eternal  well-being  of  their  souls, — as  capable  as  our 
own  of  enjoying,  through  the  Divine  Mediator,  the  pre- 
sent and  future  blessings  of  religion. 


^ 


